Power Outage

Sometime between 6 a.m. when Adam left for work and 7:45 when I rose from bed this morning, our power went out. Power outages have been a semi-regular occasion this summer and the power is usually restored within a few hours. Lily and I ate breakfast, then she played while I untangled a ball of yarn. We waited and the house got warmer and warmer, so we headed to the bookstore. I flipped through magazines while Lily played with the train set. We read board books and listened to music playing in headphones. And when we returned home at noon the power was still not on.

I knocked on a neighbor's door and learned that he had had power all along -- not what I expected. I called the power company to report the problem and then called just about everyone I thought might be home in the middle of the day with a cool place to lay a tired toddler. Lily was cranky and we had nowhere to go. So we ended up at church in the nursery where Lily could take a nap in a real crib and I could watch a movie and work on her hat. At 3, when we returned home for the second time, the power was restored as promised.

This was not at all how I planned our day would go. I thought I might go for a run first thing this morning, before it got too hot. I thought I would have time to type up an assignment for my class and do a little writing. I thought Lily and I would go to the grocery store. Oh well. If there was a word of the day today it was flexibility. No groceries meant we ate animal crackers all day and had grilled sandwich with apples and colby jack for dinner. I still have time to prepare for tomorrow's class and not running is not the end of the world.

At the end of the day I can say it was a good day. We did more than merely survive a mild catastrophe. We had an adventure, and it was fun.