Post Sandy Thoughts

Hurricane Sandy has come and gone, leaving a mess in her wake.  Some were pummeled, others hardly effected.  At my home, this is the state of things at the moment:

• We are on our fifth day without power.  We lost it Monday at 3:45pm EDT.
• We have hot water, thanks to a gas hot water heater that doesn’t use electricity.
• We have no heat.  It’s now 56 degrees inside.
• Our stove is gas, but needs electricity to operate.  We have been able to use it via an emergency battery loaned to us.
• We are keeping the refrigerator cold with two blocks of dry ice.
• No internet obviously.  Been grabbing it hear and there as we can.
• One car has a full tank of gasoline, the other half full.  Gas stations all around us are out of gasoline.
• Still lots of downed lines by us, accounting for the loss of power

There is no ETA on when we can expect to get the power back.  No ETA on when there will be more gasoline available.  The gasoline is dependent on power being restored to the areas where the tankers are filled.  In short, it’s kind of a mess for those of us in the dark.

We are making the best of it: grilling food for dinner, playing cards, watching a portable DVD player until we fall asleep on the sofa.  But after a few days it’s getting old.  I’m tired of eating in the dark – tired of moving about by flashlight.  Yes, I know there are people in worse situations – people who never have electricity.  We are being ‘inconvenienced’ at worst but it still sucks.

It’s funny how much we take for granted – how it isn’t until we loose those things that we realize just how dependent on them we have become.  I could draw all sorts of analogies here, but I don’t know as I really need to do so.

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