I survived the Great Power Outage

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

Oh, one other thing, the blackout had one upside. We took the kids outside and looked at Mars in the sky. We could see all sorts of stars, too. Not the usual night sky for New Yawk City, where you're lucky to be able to see the moon.

Sometimes, I very much take for granted the benefits of a rural existence in a small village. When I step out my back door, any "light pollution" obstructing my view of the Milky Way is usually attributed to a sky full with the Aurora Borealis.

The last "power outage" we experienced didn't cause gridlock or frustration. You have to appreciate that "rush hour" where I live is when there's more than 2 vehicles you don't recognize at the same time on main street. As the old saying goes: No one around here uses a turn signal; everyone knows where they're going anyway. And stuck walking? No one walks for exercise around here... a vehicle stops every half block and offers you a ride.

With the refrigerators offline, we made lemonade out of our lemons. Everyone tossed their perishables into coolers and looked out into their backyards to see who had started their fire-pit first, that evening (happened to be me, this particular time). Everyone trundled over with their coolers, deck chairs and two extra BBQs. End result: 3 propane BBQs cooking up steaks, hamburgers, hotdogs, potatoes, carrots, etc etc while the coolers were drained of their contents over the period of the evening... with 25-30 people gathered in/around or commuting to/from my back yard.

Fun night, really.

The "city" is a nice place to visit, but couldn't pay me enough to live there again.

*tips helm*