Thursday, July 04, 2013

Power outage

Finally, I think the house is back in order.  I had a nail appointment yesterday, and I got a text from Ralph about 6:10.  The power was out at the house.  It was 109 degrees outside when I left the bank.  It isn't going to be pretty at the house with no AC or even the swamp cooler going.  Ralph is having a hard enough time breathing right now (his lungs are half-full of liquid - hard to get any oxygen in there!) with nice cool air to breath.  Not to mention that Alli gets restless when the power is out.  Poor thing just doesn't understand why we don't turn the TV back on - it's right there - just turn it on!  I texted back that I would get the generator set up when I got home, and that my laptop had Pokemon movies on it.  After a few texts back and forth about where and how to set up the movies, Alli was happy, even if Ralph wasn't.  Ralph had the generator out for me by the time I got home, and had cords run, etc.  I just needed to start the darn thing.  Somehow.  How did that thing work again?  After a few examples of how to prime it and where the choke was (and which way to have it set), we had it going.  Yay!!!

We brought in a fan from the garage and soon had light in the kitchen and air moving.  It wasn't particularly cool air, but it was moving.  At least the temp had dropped a bit.  It was 'only' 100 when I left the salon for home.  I called PG&E, and the recording said they "were aware of our outage and expected the power back on by 8:45".  At 8:47, I called back, and the recording then said they expected the power back on by 2:00 a.m.  I gave up, shut down the generator and went to bed.  The power came back on at 11:30 - yippee!  Ralph had shut down a lot of things so they wouldn't be damaged when the power came back, so...I got up and turned off lights, turned on the AC, and then went back to bed.

Since it had been so hot, Alli evidently kicked off all her covers during the night, so when the AC came back on, she got chilled.  At least I think that is why she was up bright and early - a little before 5:00.  She went right back to bed and slept for another hour, once she got some covers on, but....I was up.  I started putting things away - candles, flashlights, fans, etc.  I still need to get the generator put away though.  But between last night and being gone last weekend, my house was a disaster!  I had started laundry earlier in the week, but since it was 115 when I got off work most nights, I really didn't want to run the dryer etc., so I was still working on the laundry.  The floors were a hairy mess.  I don't want to think about the refrigerators.  They are still waiting to be cleaned.  Maybe this evening?

Still, I'm glad the house is back together!

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