The Briggs & Stratton Storm Responder generator is droning loudly on the back porch and Pete the Aussie is peering through the window, barking for me to come out and play.
Sorry, Pete. I'm busy. Maria just left for work and I have a moderate to-do list as we face another day without electricity. I have to refill gas cans, buy ice for coolers, pick up the mail (hoping that it includes a rent check from our tenants) and see about getting our two chainsaws back in working order after their day as loaners.
It occurred to me yesterday that our cable TV/ISP bill was due that day, but I had no Internet connection with which to complete the transaction. I'll try to take care of it later this morning when I go to Hastings Wifi cafe to upload this post and do other online business, but it's hard to attach a lot of importance to paying for a service that I haven't had for almost a week.
Yesterday morning's update from the Craighead Electric Cooperative informed us that we are among the 35% of the utility's customers still without power. We took Pine Log Road west to Ark. 351 on our way into town yesterday. From our subdivision west, the road is about a mile of downhill straightaway, then a couple of 90 degree curves, uphill to the Pine Log Cemetery and a lazy S-curve into a 2-mile hill-and-valley straightaway to Ark 351. We noticed that almost all of the 45-some utility poles on that 2-mile stretch are brand new - part of the more than 3,000 poles the company lost and is replacing since last Wednesday morning. We can't be sure, but we think our power comes out of the U.S. 49 corridor just east of our subdivision. A neighbor told us yesterday that the pole barn church across the highway has power, but of course, we don't.
As we hone our coping skills and throw more money at our situation, life becomes incrementally easier each day. Maria used the electric skillet from Target to whip up a tasty brunch of fried potatoes, egg and bacon yesterday, and I made my first pot of fresh coffee in almost a week this morning thanks to power from the generator. We've been heating water in pans on top of the kerosene heater and the propane grill side burner for coffee and cocoa, but I was getting tired of the single serving Folger's coffee teabags.
We were invited to a Super Bowl party last night and it was nice to get out of the house and enjoy someone else's heat and light for a change.
We were ready to hit the sack as soon as we got home and let the dogs out to do their business in the back yard. As I've mentioned before, Ruthie sleeps on the bedroom carpet, but I was loathe to put Pete back into the kennel he'd already spent more than four hours in. So we decided to give him the rare treat of sleeping on the bed with us. The problem is that we know he will wake up sometime around 2:30 or 3 a.m. and want to go outside, something he doesn't do when he sleeps in his kennel. Besides that, Pete is an inert lump when he sleeps on the bed. Imagine having a 40-pound bag of water softener salt plunked down against your lower legs, seriously limiting your freedom of movement between the lump and the side of the bed.
It was almost a relief when he rose, flopped over Maria's body and started licking her hand about 2 a.m. After a couple of minutes in the backyard with Ruthie, he came in and went directly to his kennel, apparently as ready to be by himself as we were to have the bed to ourselves.
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