After the Storm….

Last year after we lost power for days on end in the middle of winter it scared the bejesus out of me to the point I finally got serious about lining up another place to live where I’ll not be so isolated. Thus I ended up with the down payment on a continuing care campus that won’t be ready to move into until early 2021. That means I have this winter and next to get through before I’ll be in an independent living unit where there will be backup power and someone whose job it is to do a daily wellness call and a maintenance department to fix any woes that come up including changing light bulbs. I’m hoping the maintenance man will look like Brad Pitt but I’m guessing he’ll be more like Ed Norton from the Honeymooners. I’d break stuff to get a close-up look at dimples like Mr. Pitts’. Ohmygod, I need to get out of the house more, I’m starting to sound like my teenage-self. Can’t help it, I’ve always been a sucker for dimples. My husband didn’t have them so I’ve been dimple starved since my very first, serious crush at fifteen.

Like all people who learn from their mishaps, mistakes and life experiences when I got back home after last year’s power outage that drove me to accept shelter at a friend’s house I got to work getting myself better prepared should I be without power for five days ever again. The house inside got down to 50 degrees but the worst was my cell phone ran out of power, my emergency dialer did too and it was too icy to go next door to a neighbors should I have a true, life or death issue that would have caused me to leave a blood trail across the snow. I tried charging my phone in my car but learned I needed the motor running to do that. However, I couldn’t get the garage door open to have proper ventilation to do that. I longed to sit in the car to get warm and charge my phone like I saw neighbors doing up and down the street. I was envious because I was sure as they sat in their driveways they were listening to a someone-did-me-wrong country song that made them feel better as they sang along. Misery does like company.

Since that storm I’ve had a solar powered phone charger and solar portable radio sitting in my windowsill. Not sure if they work long term and I hope never to find out. And thanks to my niece I now have a long handled tool that will reach the garage door latch that over-rides the electric garage door opener. It’s a large, heavy door that takes the strength of Hercules to lift which is another reason why I shouldn't have sent my exercise equipment to Goodwill. I also bought an Energizer flashlight that plugs in an outlet and comes on if the power goes off. I already had a couple of camping lanterns and this week I got them out when I saw the high winds and ice storm predictions and I put fresh batteries in them. Everything chargeable was put on chargers and I boiled some eggs, did the laundry, ran my dishwasher, took a shower and got out the emergency “Go Bag” I put together after last year’s storm. After checking what was inside I added a few things like medications, snacks for three days and a book. 

Then I packed a Go Bag for the dog with three days of supplies---food, treats, leash, plastic bags, dishes and water---but I couldn’t find his sweater. He’s a nudist and doesn’t like wearing a sweater for normal trips outside but during last year’s power outage I made him wear it around the clock. Where the heck did it go? I don’t usually lose things. A month or so ago I downsized his box of belongings and gave stuff to a dog rescue group including a few sweaters that no longer fit and I feared in one of my dyslexia moment I put his keeper sweater in the donation box. So off I went to buy him another before the storm hit. While I was at the pet store another woman was buying the same thing for the same reason which made me feel better not to be the only dog mama who lost a sweater. I was glad we weren't looking for the same size because I didn't want to make the nightly news for fighting over the last fricking size large in the store.

When I got back home, I pulled in the garage and before I even got the motor turned off I remembered he wore his sweater to the groomers since I donated to the rescue group and it was taken off when I dropped Levi off and the sweater was on the front seat of the car after that. I turned my motor off, leaned over to feel around between the passenger seat and the door and sure enough, the sweater had found its way down there. Apparently, when I put my purse on the seat it got pushed off….just like the set of keys got pushed off the table when I was doing the Big Paper Shredding Project last month. Now I'm wondering if maintenance men help you look for lost things because I seem to nursing a habit of carelessness in my old age. Or is it just that our brains slow down too much as we grow older? Maybe at forty, fifty even sixty we remember quicker where we last saw what we’re looking for so it only takes a few seconds to find missing stuff, hardly enough time expelled to remember the search. What's the timeline when looking for lost things registers enough to make us question our sanity? For me it seems to be after 15-20 minutes when I quit looking and it materializes like the punchline of a bad joke. Hey, lady, your brain just farted!

Sunday, the morning after our milder-than-predicted storm passed the sun was on the other side of the tree row behind my house and the ice on its branches sparkled like the diamond cliché everyone uses to describe such natural beauty. It wasn’t thick ice that took our trees and our power lines down and for that I am grateful. But I’m leaving the Go Bags packed...  ©