It’s been a long day. I didn’t leave work until aftr 6:30. And I knew I had to stop by the grocery store on the way home. I was out of cat food. The REAL kind, not the treats. Along the way, I nearly every traffic light turned yellow before I coukd speed through the intersecion.
Grocery shopping wasn’t too bad, but by this time it was after 7 pm. (The kitties are used to their after work treats around 5 pm, or earlier on weekends.) I don’t know how long I was in the store, but I ws getting edgy. Somewhere in the back of my mind I just figured something else would go wrong.
When I pulled into my parking spot, my downstairs neighbors were heading out to dinner & invited me along. Since Shadow was waiting for me in the window, I told them I’d pass. That’s when they told me we didnt have any power.
Fortunately the chic ken wings I bought for dinner dint’e require heating in the microwave. So I guess somehting went right today.
After sitting on the balconey eating wings and drinking wine, I decided to come inside, lie down on the sofa and listen to my iPod. Then I thought “Hey! I charged my laptop! I can go online and do stuff.” Except that the wireless router needs electricity to fundtion. So, I’m writing this offline with the hopes of posting later tonight, or even tomorrow if the electriciy doesn’t come back on soon.
Of cousre my flashlight’s batteries are draineed, and my cell phone is on its last battery bar. I was able to call the power company. Their automated answering line said they were investigating the problem and hoped to have power restored by 8 pm. That was at 7:55, So after my so-called dinner, I called again. They still say they’re investigating the problem, but have updated the hopeful restoral time to 10 pm. It is now 8:55.
I don’t anticipate the electricity coming on anytime soon, so I think I’ll just put on the iPod and let the music take me away. At least until the iPod runs out of juice.
Epilogue:
- Power came back at 10:15, just in time to get ready for bed.
- iPod didn’t run out of juice, but neighbors might have wondered at my singing,
- I take no responsibility for the possible plethera of typos. I’m blaming it on lack of light and wine as I’m not interested in proofing before posting. So there.
The Stream of Conscience has frozen over 
That sounds like an evening last spring when my whole neighbourhood was without light for a couple of hours.
My computer and my router were the only appliances needing electricity that worked in my home that night, as they are connected to a UPS.
However, if we are on being uncomfortable, a worse experience was when my home boiler broke on a January 2 and I wasn’t able to have it fixed till January 10. Luckily, warm water was still there (water heating and house heating are on two different systems), but can you imagine living in an unheated home for a week in the coldest period of the year?
Wait a minute! You live in Italy! The power goes out ALL the time! 😀
No, I would not like living in a house without heat during the coldest time of the year. *pets Francesca*
As far as I know and can remember, power in my neighbourhood went out without notice twice in the past 20 years. Then, in summer 2003 – which was an unusually hot summer all over Europe – we had programmed blackouts that lasted 1 and half hours.
I think that a problem in Italy is that the power available to every household is such that you can’t switch on more than one high-consumption appliance at a time, if you don’t want power to go off in your home. For example, you can’t switch on your washing machine while your oven is working, or iron while dish washer is working.