No electricity

Okay, so I live in this place that is old, and sometimes the power will go out for a bit, usually just a minute or two, just long enough to be annoying. And then you have to go around and reset the clocks and wait for the computer to reboot and fiddle with the TV and VCR and those converter boxes and all four of their remotes. But usually that is all that happens. And then there are other times that the power goes out, and it is long enough to make you stop what you are doing and figure out something else to do.

Not that this doesn't happen to other people who don't live in old places. My mother has had worse, sometimes having to go without power for days. That once got so bad that she checked into a motel for a day, cause she couldn't get to sleep without the air conditioner, and then in the morning she couldn't have a bath cause the hot water heater was electric.

I have gas, so if I had to do without electricity for a really long time I would still be able to take a bath. And I would still be able to cook, though not anything really good, cause without electricity I couldn't use the fridge. Unfortunately, they no longer allow us to heat our houses with gas, unless we have a special permit and such, which I do not have, so heating the house would be limited to whatever heat I could have in the kitchen area by leaving the stove on. And there would just be nothing I could do about cooling the place in the summer.

So even though I live in this old place with the electricity that will sometimes just flick on and off and be annoying, I haven't had it as bad as other people, and I haven't even been as unlucky with it as my mom.

When the electricity goes off for more than a few minutes, I don't quite know what to do with myself. All the things that I would normally do, when I have nothing better to do, require electricity. You can't watch TV without electricity. You can't use the computer without electricity. And for the most part, reading or knitting or most anything else I would do I wouldn't have enough light for if I didn't have electricity, so that stuff is out too.

Anyway, you normally don't know when this is going to happen, only during a storm you know that it might happen, but really, it could happen at any time. But I've been told that there is a planned power outage next week, and I've been told a date and a time, though not for certain how long, and that it would have to be moved to a different date and time if it rains much.

So I can't watch TV or use the computer. If I stay in the house I can't read or knit. And if I need anything from the fridge, I can't cook. And before then I can't buy groceries, at least not the kind that goes in the fridge, cause I might have to throw out all that stuff after the power outage if it goes too long.

And then I was thinking if I should move any of the food that I don't want to throw out into a cooler. But then I remembered that we got rid of the big ice chest after we bought the electric one, so that won't work either.

So I'm trying to think what to do ahead of time, but I will probably still forget and open the fridge and such. I'm afraid that the best thing to do would be to spend the day out shopping or something, which I am trying not to do anyway. I should go to the dollar theater, except that there doesn't seem to be that much that I would want to see there now. Maybe I'll go to a restaurant for a bit. Maybe I'll take something to read. Maybe I'll go to the library and read. Not that any of that is really bad, but trying to plan a whole day of it when I don't have money to burn is a bit of a chore.

I guess that I will figure it out.