After the Storm

So the bomb cyclone that hit my north of Boston town is drawing away at last, leaving havoc and devastation all along the coast of New England (not to mention states farther south). Good riddance, I say!

I lost power midmorning on Friday, got it back a couple of hours later, then lost it for good a little after 7:00 p.m. -- an outage, I learned later, that hammered pretty much the entire eastern half of Essex County. Fortunately it was a rain event rather than snow, so we didn't get buried under a foot of the white stuff; but the wind, oh, the wind! Howling and roaring, gusting massively, trees thrashing wildly, hour after hour after hour....

Luckily for me, I had discovered just a few days ago that my old storm lantern, in which I'd foolishly left the batteries, was ruined and unsalvageable, so I'd bought a new LED lantern just in time for this storm. Also fortunate, I have a gas stove and a box of wooden matches so I could cook and heat water for tea and dishwashing. I put perishable food in a plastic box out on the deck, which provided a great opportunity to do that thorough cleanout and cleaning of the fridge I'd been meaning to get around to -- hey, a silver lining to the storm clouds!

I was able to read reasonably well by daylight and lantern light; I went to bed much earlier than usual last night and slept well; my well-insulated condo, with its newish windows and new front door, sandwiched between flanking townhouses, never dropped below about 57 degrees; and I managed not to fall and kill myself tripping over Peanut. It was annoying and a pain in the butt but nowhere near as awful as a lot of other people suffered.

The power came back on late this afternoon as dusk was gathering, hurrah! I could see to feed the cats; I could see to plate the prepared food that I'd put back in the fridge and nuke it in the microwave; I caught up on email; and oh, the marvelous feeling, I had my first shower since Thursday evening!

Gotta go out tomorrow and shop for a second (hopefully brighter) lantern and a headlamp that isn't so old it's too faint to be worth a damn. After all, there's another storm forecast to come barrelling in midweek....