1. Last night, Christy told me something I'd never thought of. (Get ready. It's one of those things almost every person I know would have known.) She told me that our neighbor Jane told her it was a good thing I had a gas range because I could manually light my burners. In my long and patchy life, every single time I've lit up a burner on a gas range, I've used the built-in electric starter.
First thing I did this morning when I woke up in front of Christy's fireplace, stretched out in her recliner?
I watched a YouTube video about lighting a gas burner when the power is out.
Christy just happened to have an unopened Bic long-range butane lighter on hand, gave it to me, and, once I'd shaken the morning cobwebs, I returned to my refrigerated house, fired up the Bic, turned on a burner, put the flame next to where the gas comes out, and PRESTO!, I could boil water and cook.
I immediately made Christy a thermos of boiling water and myself a cup of coffee. I nearly filled the Dutch oven with water, put it on the most powerful burner, and brought it to a boil so I'd have some hot water for miscellaneous things I might want to do later.
Knowing I can manually light my gas range's burner is, to quote Debbie, a game changer. For you reading this, it might be hilarious that I could so ignorant not knowing about lighting the burners manually. That's okay. Really. I can take it. Laugh it up! For me, it's just a simple case of better late than never having learned such a game changing fact.
2. With the power out, I was grateful that today turned out to be mostly sunny day. The natural light in the living room made reading easy and, as the sun moved west, more and more warmth poured into the living room. I dove back into The Yellow House. I'm loving it. I comforted myself with a bowl of steaming oatmeal with raisins, blueberries, and peanut butter with milk. Cas texted me to make sure I was doing all right. Like Carol and Paul, his power had been restored at home and at the Lounge earlier in the day. He also offered Christy firewood if she ran low.
Not being able to busy myself with much else and being physically fairly comfortable, I leaned into the power outage. I read. I napped in the living room chair. I updated Debbie once in a while. I did the same with Stu.
I was especially grateful for the sunlight.
3. Around 3:00, I heated up the marinara sauce and meatballs I had left over from Sunday's dinner and I boiled about 3/4s of a pound of penne, thinking that I was ready for a hot meal and knowing Christy would, no doubt, also enjoy this food.
Then, just before 4:00, after 32 hours, the power popped back on. The furnace kicked on. Slowly the house warmed up.
I thought of two things: I can run the dishwasher and I can catch up on my blog.
Christy came over with a container and returned home with penne and meatballs.
As I was blogging away, Terry and Stu both sent me messages about the Zags game that had started at 6 p.m.
I was so eager to catch up on my blogging, that I forgot all about the basketball game.
Power outage amnesia.
I decided not to flip it on. The house was quiet. I was enjoying writing. So I kept an eye on the score online, got a few more messages from Byrdman, Terry, and Stu, and got caught up.
When I turned in for the night, I watched one episode of Midnight Diner in bed, a sublime, moving father/daughter story. I didn't watch any others, contemplated what I'd just seen, and felt happy that I had decided about a month ago not to binge watch this series, but to watch it one or two episodes at a time so that each elegant story sinks in.
This episode's featured dish was sauced yakisoba with a fried egg on top. This meal played an essential and profound part in this episode's story. I don't want to give how or why away.
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