We Got Tired Pretending We Were Amish

Here in Cleveland, we do snow. We understand snow drifts, snow piles, snow storms, snow flakes, snow fall, lake effect snow and snow that falls just because. 

However, when the wind blows and knocks out the power...that is harder to do.

Sunday, when we lost power, we lit candles and appreciated the quiet hum of the neighborhood. 

Monday morning, when I tried getting ready for work by candlelight I thought:

 I could be in Galveston, so be grateful. This is an adventure.

But when I tried to get my kids up and dressed in the dark, lets just say they seemed to be missing the spirit of adventure. When I didn't want to open the fridge to let the cool air out, I was getting a little crabby as well. When I could not figure out what to feed myself or the kids, saw the shadow of my frizzy hair in the mirror,  knew my make up was probably too dark, and the kids were cranky, I said, "We are going out to breakfast!" 

So there we sat and I tried to make the best of it. 

"Just think, because the power is out, you get a chocolate chip pancake." They looked at me over their milk cups. Four eye rolls. I wasn't winning them over.

So I said, "Lets pretend we are Amish." At least that sparked a conversation and got their minds off the fact that the Amish don't have computers or tv's.  As for me, I was trying to figure out how to save hundreds of dollars of food we just purchased Sunday afternoon. I guess the Amish don't keep kosher.

I was not sacrificing my kosher meat, no matter how Amish I was pretending to be. 

When the kids came home on Monday we still had no power.  I made what dinner I could and we trekked our freezer full of food over to a friends house, where it was sparred. My husband bought ice and put food from the fridge  into coolers and left them closed as well. On Monday night before we went to sleep we noticed that across the street, they had power. For a moment I thought, at least if I was Amish, we would all take care of each other. What kind of neighborhood do I live in? No one checks in with the other side of the street to see if we were OK. Was there anything we needed? I just don't understand that.

By Tuesday morning, we knew we had lost the rest of the food in the fridge and the kids were not happy. My husband, who lives to take care of me and put a smile on my face, found a generator he could borrow, and off he went to get it. 

He cleaned the old gas out. He put the new gas in. He turned it on, and that sweet hum gave him faith in the hope of electricity. He plugged something into it....nothing. He tried again. Nothing. Now we had a generator and even that did not give us electricity. 

All I could think, was that I had to see clients and by this time my hair needed a zip code all of its own. See, if I was Amish I would wear one of those nifty caps and then frizz is a non issue. 

When I came home from seeing clients, I crossed over adventurous, jumped over the crabby, launched over the cranky and was just pissed. 

"They forgot about us," I whined to my husband.

 "No, they didn't. They are helping other people," he reassured me. "We will get our power on soon," he said trying to get me out of Pissyville. To no avail. I was firmly planted there. 

The kids read by flashlight and informed me they were not eating cold cereal again, Eliana was in tears because this disrupts the routine she counts on, and Elon was forgetting his homework at school.  

My husband and I sat down to eat dinner. I popped popcorn on the stove and found a piece of wet cheese at the bottom of our cooler. 

"OK," I said, "I am done being Amish, I want to go to a hotel." 

He looked at me, again trying to rescue me from the land of Pissyville and said, "This will all be over soon, you'll see." 

With the incredulousness of a teenager I thought, "WHAT-EV-ER!"

Well there was day, there was evening, there was darkness and there was light...at about 3:00 am this morning.

Alan went to work and Eliana was with me in bed at 4:30 am, after a terrible nightmare. Hot cereal was served, hair was defrizzed, and makeup was applied so I didn't look like a call girl.  

Ah, life returns to normal.