WIre Down! Cherry Picker Up!

So we had a little excitement and inconvenience today (Saturday). Very early this morning I was startled awake by the sound of what I thought to be giant clanging metal trash cans. I figured that it was the cleaning truck and I went back to sleep. Now the fact that our garbage cans are plastic and trash day was Friday, didn't ready occur to me until I woke up an hour later and saw all the flashing lights of police cars and fire trucks.

Now nothing had caught fire and no crime had been committed so what could have cause such a collection of lights? Several power lines had fallen all along our side of the street. The whole block had been tape off and they were not letting any vehicles in or out. I looked out the window and saw the police tape run from the no parking sign pole next door right over my car and tied up to our entrance gate. It looked like we were under house arrest or part of a crime scene. There were many wires hanging down and there were at least four wires that had fallen to the ground. One had fallen directly behind the driveway. There was no way out and I had a bible class to get to. So I called my mom and she was coming to my rescue. I love my mom!

In the meantime, Scott and I asked the police officer what might have caused the incident and he weren't sure. It could have been the wind, a transformer or birds. Now having seen Hitchcock's "The Birds" I wouldn't put it past them. But from what I had heard earlier that morning I think it was the transformer, so for now the birds are off the suspect list.
They told us that it would take most of the day to fix and they were right.

By now, they had block off the entire street so I was going to meet my mom at the corner, but I wasn't allowed to walk through on my street, I had to go around the block. There was mom waiting. I love my mom! So when I got back I went home the same way. But before heading home I went to get milk, because Scott pointed out that cereal was the only thing we could eat seeing as the power was out. No oven, no microwave.

When I did get home PG&E was going to begin fixing the wires in front of the house. It took three trucks and a cherry picker to fix it. It took a while to fix but they were efficient.

So what to do with the power out and unable to leave, clean? Scott did some cleaning and I may have picked up a thing or two, but I opted to read. So for most of the afternoon I finished the autobiography of Dick Van Dyke. He has had a full career and not the best luck with cars. Read it and you'll understand. It was a pleasure to just read, without any electronic devices tempting me.

The power returned around 3 o'clock. All the electronics beeped awake flashing the incorrect time. Apart from being unable to use my oven I really didn't miss anything else. It was nice to have a quiet afternoon. So the inconvenience of no power turn out to be a sweet gift. Maybe it wasn't such an inconvenience.