Lights Out.

We have not had a big storm in awhile - but Friday night the black clouds rolled in and the wind picked up. We didn't get hit as hard as those down in Morgantown or Preston county but it thundered and stormed, the trees whipped and the branches were flying.  And then of course, the lights went out. I don't know about you but I HATE when the lights go out, the air conditioner gently went to sleep, the refrigerator went dark. Bastards. We started opening the windows and with all the wind whipping and the temps dropping, it was not too terrible downstairs. Upstairs is another story so I decided to sleep down in the guest room - David decided to join me, followed by the Chicken Dogs. Vincent the cat was wondering where everyone was - and since it's a full sized bed and the dogs themselves are full sized it quickly resembled a refugee camp. Pearl was freaking so there was no dissuading her and Reuben was staying if she was - David ended up volunteering to be voted off the island and headed back upstairs. Since the wind was picking up it was nice by then although he chose not to share  this little fact since he had the whole bed to himself.  The next morning found us still in the dark, but it was not a huge problem. The freezer was still frozen, the fridge was still cold. We have a burner on our BBQ so David pottered out with the tea kettle and we had hot coffee. We have street water (YAY!!) and the hot water was still hot.  We had no TV or computer so we sat and talked which kept us occupied til about 7:30. I called the electric company - still no time for fixing it. Since we had no access to the TV we could not have known how extensive it was, that WV is declared in a state of emergency, that over 600,000 are without electric and that 11 people died as a result of those storms. We decided to go out and buy ice early - I hate that part, it's always such a mess. The ice starts to melt, you have to transfer all that sweating food, but it's a good time to clean out the fridge since you have to pick and choose what you'll keep. The temps were soaring by then which just made it all the more hot and miserable, David took the dogs out and soaked them down with the hose. Pearl enjoys it but Reuben always suspects he's on the dinner menu so he went limp as he does in an unsure situation - never sure if we should be annoyed or amused. By 4 pm still no lights so I called the company - the rep was nice and assured me the electric would be restored in less than two days (TWO DAYS??). She pointed out that some areas would not be seeing a working light for a week - or more - in other words no whining. David and I had looked for a generator but they were sold out early that morning so he headed to Walmarts for more ice, I started transferring all the food downstairs to the old chest freezer that came with the house. It's cooler down there and the old freezer holds the cold really well - I got everything covered with the remaining ice and as soon as I took the dogs out one last time and headed back for the house - the lights blazed. I honestly can't complain. We spent $40 on ice(David had bought 5 more bags at Walmart before I could get a hold of him and apparently ice is a non-returnable item) but in the grander scheme of things, we were only without for 24 hours, no one suffered (much) and we lost very little food. It was an interesting end to my vacation - I go back to work on Monday but Jackson is safely back in California, both boys are doing well, and I got to spend two weeks with my family. No complaints here.