Blown Away

There is an expression, “An ill wind blows no one any good” that comes to mind today.  Perhaps we had an ill wind; perhaps not.

We had no electricity for two days.  The reason was the fierce winds flying through drought-ridden Southern California.  We didn’t get fires, although other places did.  Winds were recorded at up to 38 mph in my area.  No trees fell, luckily, but a few branches and dirt are all over the place now.  Our electric company, So Cal Edison and others, have a program called PSPS – Public Service Power Shut-off.  The purpose of this program is to keep power lines downed by winds from starting the types of fires that rage through dry country and burn entire towns, such as Paradise, CA, a few years ago.  Inconvenient if you like electricity, but better than burnt-out cities.

Living without electricity has become an almost eerie event.  By this I mean we are so lost without it – and without the internet!  It is as if you are picked up and plopped down onto a desert island.  We passed the time reading books by flashlight and Kindle-light.  Fortunately, the electricity doesn’t power our water or water heater.  Our stove top works with gas, which we can light with a match, even though the ovens are electric.  We also had to do dishes by hand and are now, with the electric back on, have access to washing our clothes, our dishwasher, and so on.  The phone service, though, was delayed by a few hours, and with that, the internet.

Despite a lack of electricity, I managed to do some rather bad watercolors by flashlight, and cleaned up some piddly crap.

My life is back to normal.

Life is back to normal, too, in Washington, DC!  I hope that our new President can turn around this country’s divisiveness, handle the pandemic, and lead us out of the mess of the past four years.  I hope we find a return to cooperation rather than “me, me, me” and “no, no, no”.

TTFN.