I lived!

What a combo breaker, two years of dedication and daily blogging down the toilet because the government was trying extremely hard to kill me. I’m not mad, just disappointed, okay I’m very mad (in the government stuff, not my streak that’s not a big issue). Technically I’m not through the storm quite yet, the power could still go back out, but I have had power longer now than I have in the past few days. Long enough to write a quick update anyway.

A few days ago (Monday) I was lucky enough to still have power when I wrote my last post. Shortly after I lost power and it hasn’t been back on until a few hours ago. It’s been a struggle to say the least, the temperature during the day would hit a high of 30ish and a low of 10 (fahrenheit for all my confused international followers) if I was lucky. No power isn’t the end of the world for me, but it does make life more difficult.

The water has been touch and go, there is a boil water advisory anyway so I couldn’t drink it, but even if I wanted to the pressure was a light trickle at the worst of times and a languid stream at the best. I filled a few pots in case I needed to flush a toilet or something, but that took an hour or so of sitting by the fauset to get. Luckily I have a few gallons of drinking water on hand to drink and the gas has been working (mostly) so I could boil water if I needed more.

The big issue has been the temperature (aside from lack of internet, lack of phone, the icy roads, no real escape, etc.). When I had power turn on for about five minutes the other day, the thermostat told me it was a tosty 38 degrees inside the house, I didn’t think to check it when the power came back on in the early morning so I’m not sure quite how cold it got.

I would be fine, but I have two cats that are idiots. Okay, okay they are just dumb. Like stupid enough to freeze by the window dumb, so I had to come up with a way to keep them warm and close by to keep an eye on them. To make matters worse, one of my cats hisses and swats at the other if she gets close. They’ve been sisters for like four years now, but she still won’t let the other near her. So I did the only thing I could really think to do, I built a tent.

Enter the pillow fort. No, really. I took all the (two) pairs of sheets in my house, some string, a whole lot of plastic tarp, my couch, a large step stool, two cat scratcher posts, the cat beds, and all the blankets I had (thankfully a lot more than two), then I set up a modest sized fort in the living room to conserve heat and keep everyone warm. Which, because I’m afraid the power may go out again, I’m typing from right this moment.

If I were smart I would’ve had an air mattress handy or something, but sleeping on the floor hasn’t been so bad I guess, technically I’m sleeping on a rug, so it’s a little soft at least. The good news is it worked, the area stayed (semi) warm, warm-ish, warm enough that no one froze to death. Both the cats found spots inside that made them both happy, there was a little bit of hissing, but it was outside the tent, so I’m not sure what that was all about, one of them is a giant grump I guess.

Anywho, that’s the update. Between the lack of response to COVID, the zero preparation for the storm, and the lack of response to the disaster that followed, I’m pretty sure the government (at least at a local level) wants to kill me and everyone around here. It’s been an interesting few days and while I’m not 100% sure it’s over, I hope that we’re through the worst of it. Temperatures are supposed to be increasing to non-freezing lower temps, so that will hopefully help everything. None of my pipes are frozen (at least I don’t think they are (fingers crossed) so all in all I think I did okay and I hope everyone else stays safe as well.