10:07 pm - Friday, Aug. 15, 2003
Blackout!
I guess I better write before I get too tired, or before the power goes off again! I had a decent day, although in retrospect it was really long. But the more interesting things happened last night. I was at work at about 4pm, and the kids and I had just got back from swimming at the holiday in. It had been the hottest day of the summer so far (38 with the humidex) and we were cooling off with freezies when all of a sudden I noticed that the clock on the stove was blank. I told the kids that there was a power outage, but no biggie, cause we were hanging out outside anyways, and we didn't need the power for anything. But soon after I got a phone call from both AM and D, who were in frenzies/panics because it wasn't just our city block, or kingston. AM got info from her offices in Toronto that the power was out in downtown TO, Brampton, basically everywhere you could think of. D works at the radio station here in Kingston, and his news was that it wasn't just ontario - it was everywhere from New York City (and state) to New Jersy to Ohio. It was pretty amazing to hear about how widespread it was. Initially in those first two hours or so, Cretien put forth a statement (or maybe it was eaves?) that the outage was from fires at the power plants in Niagra and possible NewYork. People suspected terrorists, but as far as I understand that was discounted pretty quickly. So after work I set up some candles in the house for the night, ate a bowl of cereal 'cause my milk was going to go bad anyway, and read about 100 pages of the book I'm into. Nahri had asked all of us to go out for her birthday, and since I didn't have a phone, I biked over there at about 7. Nar and I caught up, and things were back to normal SOOOOOO quickly, we were laughing really hard, talking about chown and calgary and her friends and my friends. I saw her bf again who is SO nice, and we ate and lamented about the power. Em showed up about 20 minutes later and she had just been downtown, so we thought we'd get out of the HOT apartment and go and check things out. Downtown was wild, people just walking, enjoying the hot weather. Most of the pubs were open to try and sell off their beer, and at some places, people had pulled up in their cars and let the radio play so that there was music. The few places that were opened were completely packed, so we just wandered, ran in to A and B for a few minutes, and kept wandering until it got dark. I can't describe it, it was a great feeling sharing in this little emergency with so many people. Everyone was so friendly, talking to eachother on the street. There was no shopping, no bustle, no meetings or dates or appointments. It was like life was put on hold for a night to remind us all to take a break. It was amazing that for once, there was no where to be, other than where we all were. I loved the atmosphere, watching the sun set and the city get dark with no streetlamps to replace the sunlight. We ended up in line for pizza (which was being served by candlelight at pizza pizza) and stood with about 100 other people who had the same idea. The pizza people were cracking jokes, and em nar, jay and I sat out on the curb and ate pizza and just watched the streets, the stores. It was pretty surreal. Em and I walked through the ghetto from there, and remembered that the big meteor shower was that night, so we stood in the middle of garret street and watched the shooting stars. The sky was unbelieveable - there was no city light for hundreds of miles. We could see every star beyond stars. We could see the big strip of the milky way, and we found about 5 constellations amung us. We walked past tons of people having candlelit parties on their porches,and there was generally an air of festivity everywhere we went. Riding home, it was so dark that I cound't see my hand in front of me. I felt like I was on Space Mountain at disneyland, which is so dark that you can't see which way the track goes infront of you. A neat element of surprise.
And home was nice too. Em and I lit whatever candles we could find, and we got peach drink from the fridge (still slightly cool) and I brought out my question book. We put a huge blanket down on the floor, and got tons of pillows, and asked questions forever. It was the best talk we've ever had...asking about what we'd change, what we'd sacrafice, what we accept and don't accept, our worst memories (and our kindest ones). She slept in the living room and I was in my bedroom with my trusty little battery powered clock to wake me up for work.
The power came on sometime around 3 am, and I was relieved and dissipointed at the same time. Somehow, life was all back to the way it had been before, and that little community friendlyness, the excitement was gone. I knew I had to work in the morning, knew that it was all going back to normal.
And work....was another story alltogether. I was supposed to have this morning off, but Todd and Jillian called me and asked if I could look after Colin and Shawn for the morning and then take Colin over to the Vannavers after lunch, with Shawn at tennis lessons. They are such a nice family, and they live in the most beautiful home I have ever seen...fell in love with it. Perfectly landscaped yard, the whole quintessential no-problems family life. But their kids are pretty off-centered, I can't really put my finger on it but they're different. It made me realize how happy I was that at least the vannaver kids are independant! When I was getting colin dressed, he wanted one specific shirt, one specific pair of underwear, whereas Kiera will wear ANYTHING that you hand her. I like the kids I work for, I realized that this morning, I really like them. There's just too many! Anyway, Colin and Shawn have this TODIEFOR chocolate lab puppy named Oskar who's just about 5 months. He looks exactly like this
And boy is he a handful. He's pretty well trained, but just the brute strength of him...I was pushed to the ground when I got there...scratches all up my arms from trying to keep him 'off'. He's got more energy than 30 waldo's ever did! But what a gorgeous dog! So the kids and I played with Oskar, and watched a movie (a privilige I'm not accustomed to at the vannavers house, with no tv and all), and then the Vannavers came over in the afternoon to play on the gamecube. Em was such a big help, teasing the kids, helping me get them their snack, playing outside in the sprinkler with them, getting them cleaned up, carrying them, and basically volunteering her time to make the afternoon go by quickly. And it did (thanks dear). Marcus and I got to talk tonight, and I ordered a new desk online at staples for 78 bucks! Not bad. It's the extra money I made working for C and S this morning, and then doing the Vannavers tomorrow night while they go out. My desk is rotting from the humidity...stupid unfinished wood. And this is actually about the same price as finishing the wood to seal out moisture, so I figured, why not? Anyway, that's pretty exciting. Okokok, I'm off. More later, when I wake up from a long summers nap.
