Staying Warm and Dry

I was right about that power outage thing - just after I clicked "Publish Post" we lost our power and it was out for the rest of the evening. The storm was fairly warm still, so our fireplace and tea kept us warm. Hubby and William played a long game of Risk while I tried to read by the last of daylight. Everyone kept calling us to see if our lights were out though so by the time I was done getting up and down off the couch six thousand eight hundred seventy eleven times to let everyone know that YES, we had no power, the sun had set and there was no daylight left to read by. Grrrrr.

So I drove off to see if the lights were on anywhere else in town. They weren't, but emergency generators at our local Safeway allowed them to be open. Shopping under twilight level lights is an interesting experience. The store was filled with people buying food, water, batteries, etc. Even wierder was a parking lot full of people and cars with NO lights.

Later hubby wanted to check out the local Indian Casino as they had full generator power, an oasis of light and heat in the velvet darkness of an entire county without electricity. It was smoky inside though, and the waiting list for a coffee shop table was hours, so we went back home and stoked the fire and made more tea. Hubby even made coffee with our new French press. I made popcorn and challenged hubby to a game of Scrabble.

The score was close until I fell into a two word corner opportunity with triple word scores both way and a 10 point letter in both - 125 points in one play. After that hubby used the F word pretty much nonstop. If I even smiled or said "oh" or reached for a letter - F word. I'd forgotten what a sore loser he can be. I was gracious though. I only gloated briefly. I only laughed and did the happy dance for a few seconds. Hehehe.

It rained and rained and rained all night. I spent most of the night waking to the sound and thinking "as long as I can hear the rain, that means it's not snow" - which, considering the sheer volume of precipitation we received, seemed a good thing.

The cold front following (pushing?) this first storm along made it's way across the state however and when the rain finally turned to snow it did it dramatically. If these weren't the largest snowflakes I've ever seen, they at least tie for the largest I've ever seen. It was coming down so fast that I couldn't get all the car windows cleaned off fast enough to keep them all clear before driving off. I was at the tea room with my friend Deb when the snow began, who I'd picked up, and who happens to live at the top of the steepest street in town. I swear. STEEPEST. I did manage to get her home and then my car attempted several pirhouettes and twirls on the way down the hill. Fortunately no cars were parked on the street and no one else was dumb enough to attempt driving on it so I didn't hit anything and I managed to stop at the Stop sign at the bottom. Whew.

When I got home, I snapped a photo before it got to dark. It went from soaking wet and rainy to white like this in about a half hour. Now there's a lot more depth out there and it's still coming down. I ended up going out and driving in it again after dark, because William forgot to return a video game, and my windshield wiper broke off on the way home. Now we're talking fun!

Tonight we have power (knock on wood) and we're just hanging out, watching the storm updates on the television (they closed Interstate 80!) and keeping warm. Buck was out in his kennel for a bit midday and when he came inside he was one very wet, fluffy canine. I love how he found a pillow to rest his weary head on. Can I fluff that for you, Buck? Maybe bring you a blanket? Sheesh.

Oh, I forgot to mention the biggest news - after two weeks of family who I love really truly I do but two weeks is a long time and holidaying is a job all by itself and did I mention two weeks and I know I'm the luckiest woman ever that my kids love me so much and my grandbabies too but two weeks and well, moving along, we finally waved the last of our company off (into the storm, which was a huge story all by itself if only my daughter had her own blog she could tell you all about the adventure) and they're all safe and sound at their respective homes. It was nice to sleep a long time last night. It was lovely to do a little bit of not much today. It was nice, if very strange, to be able to set my camera down on the table and not worry about small fingers carrying it off. I deserve a little holiday to recover from all this holiday. I'll get back to being productive tomorrow.

Maybe.