9 hour long dredge of conversation...

Yes, it was as if dredging our minds of all the things we never talk about - all the sediment that rests peacefully,undisturbed is brought to the surface! All the while Dock man keeps repeating he's going to have to sue NIPSCO for his near future asylum commitment due to the fact that he has to actually TALK to his wife. Couple that with no baseball & we have a lawsuit, my friends. And...and the Penguins played that night, too - but it wasn't so bad we missed it - they lost the second game of the Stanley Cup finals 4-0, same score as the first loss. Ugh. (They did win tonight - it could be a short lived happiness - they were simply getting outplayed before tonight, but I digress.)

So, yeah - we were without power for 9 whole hours! What does a family do when this happens? Not a whole lot.

First - we had to eat our dinner on the deck because it was too dark in the house & scented candles screwing up the flavor doesn't sit well with me (I suppose I should buy some that aren't scented for occasions such as this one?). The dinner was lacking in side dishes, not that it's a terrible thing, but I missed the potatoes with the steak. Cucumbers & sour cream did suffice - 'cept Dew doesn't eat cukes any more because once they come back up on ya, even one time, all is lost on the flavor. He had steak & bread. Now, we don't often eat on our deck because (cheap) Dock man doesn't think we need a patio set. I guess I showed him, huh? It wasn't me that knocked the tree onto the power line. I could take credit to prove a point. I can't imagine Dock man would believe me, though. We didn't have any storms or anything, no strong winds, just an odd falling dead tree a few blocks from our home.

Second - Dew refused to go to sleep because it was dark. I chuckled way too many times when he brought that up because, "son, it's dark every night." "Yeah, but it's waaaay darker tonight." He was up until 10 o'clock. Not good for a kid who needs at least 10 hours of good sleep to be human (really, if you've had a kid like this, you truly understand what I'm talking about). Kyle was chuffed about the outage - except he couldn't play any games. When it was his bedtime, he was - get this - too bored to sleep...huh? Prior to his bedtime, he & I took a walk to see what was up. We only saw one utility truck with it's hazards on so we thought nothing was getting done. We griped all the walk back home. Dock man went to get us coffee after while I was left to sit alone in the dark with nothing to do - I couldn't even read, dammit! - stinkin' Dunkin was closed! Closed? They must not have staff cause there is no other reason. When he returned, he told me that there were several trucks on the scene, we just hadn't walked far enough to see them. The 2 of us agreed the workers were milking the holiday pay. 9 hours...

Third - Dock man & I played demo games on his phone for a while because conversation ran out. We realized that his phone co. (cingular/at&t) wanted money for every game - no free games at all. *sigh* I couldn't even finish one round of Tetris and he could only play 2 hands of poker. It was so quiet it was kind of awkward when we did get some time for ourselves. Hot Dog! (yes, I just said "hot dog!" - with kids around, you know the deal) We had to be ultra quiet - he was freaking out that we might wake them...

Finally, it was time for bed. I was debating whether or not to actually send the kids to school in the morning because I didn't want to have to sign them in if they were late (which they would have been without an alarm clock - I don't have an internal. Mornings don't suit me.). I laid down to go to sleep & voila! Fridge! Judge me for not wanting to walk them in...sad, I know - but I can justify Dew's missing - he has to do it all over again next year so he won't miss anything & Kyle is a whip, so he wouldn't have been hurt by it.

I got up to set my clocks again & looked out the window. I found it disarmingly funny that so many sleeping people had sooooooo many lights on in their homes. It was almost 3am. I know that when power is out in our home, everything gets shut off or unplugged (like the satellite boxes & computers) in case of a power surge. Maybe the funny was the slap happy kicking in, cause it really isn't all that humorous.

Side note: I love it when you call the power company & they ask if you want a phone call when the power comes back on..huh? Um, yeah, cause I won't know it unless you call.