The wind was furious this morning. I thought this tornado weather was forecasted for yesterday.
Twice my power blinked on and off, and then at about 11:15, I heard a very loud pop that sounded like a transformer blowing out. I showered before my hot water got cold, and left the house—still powerless—at about 11:45.
I stopped by the post office, where I avoided a huge line by weighing the envelope containing my federal taxes to confirm that it weighed an ounce or less—0.8 ounces.
An e-mail from Sarah today let me know that my scholarship to the STC conference is for $1000 instead of the anticipated $500. Thank goodness, because the itinerary I have on hold is about $856.00.
I drove over to Crossroads, where I had a salad bar for lunch at Ruby Tuesday.
I parked back at the Food Lion on Avent Ferry, and I caught the bus to Clark Hall, where I worked for about 4.5 hours on Service-Learning—half of that time in a meeting with Patty and Myra, and the other half in a meeting with Myra and Elizabeth, with Alissa joining in toward the end.
On the bus on the way back to my car, I had the strangest sensation come over me. Sitting across from me, there were two girls and a guy.
One of the girls was very attractive, and I looked at her—nothing—then at this average looking guy next to her whose five o’clock shadow piqued my senses.
I thought, “It’s just weird that I feel nothing for this woman, when 90% of men would. How does that happen? It’s just a strange way to go through life—sort of riding along on the periphery, and with no good infrastructure to support my reality.”
Since I was parked at the grocery store and had my “list” with me, I stopped in Food Lion and bought $85.00 worth of groceries.
I got home appalled to find that, almost 8 hours later, my power was still out. My freezer was not at all cold. I’m quite sure the stuff in there needs to be cooked tomorrow or tossed.
And here I was with a pile of new stuff to be frozen in a freezer that isn’t one.
I rode over to Helios, where after about an hour I checked in with my neighbor to see if the power was back on. She had called Progress Energy, was given an “estimated up time” of 7:45, and signed up to be notified by cell phone when our power came back on.
She said she was at the house at 7:35, the power flickered, but didn’t stay on. She ran out to grab some dinner, and was at a friend’s house waiting for “the call.”
Over nine fucking hours without power is redamndiculous. It’s not like we’ve had some kind of major catastrophe or anything.
Kathryn called at about 9:10 to say that she hadn’t received a call from them, but that she had called her home and her answering machine had answered, which means the electricity must be back on.
The electricity was indeed restored when I arrived home. I worked on my oral defense presentation for the rest of the evening—until 1:30AM.