Fifty-Four Hours (Wild and Absolutely True)

Hey, all. I hope no one's been worried about not hearing from me through email, myspace or various message boards.

The Puget Sound had a massive windstorm Friday night/Saturday morning. At 4:30 Saturday morning, our power went spectacularly out with a huge flash of light and lots of wind. The storm had no thunder, no lightning, only winds that blew trees over, and power out for 140,000 customers.

Port Ludlow has been the last to get power back. I guess many power lines are so remote that crews have to hike to them. Yesterday, Dad checked into a hotel. He and Mom slept there last night and I stayed at the house (privacy, my own bed, and to keep the cats reassured). I've been showering at the hotel, as our hot water is electrically heated.

The contents of our fridge are spoiled, but if the power gets back on today, our freezer should be okay. Dad turned the major power switch off so that the surge of power, when it does come back, won't blow out our computer, TVs, etc.

Puget Power hopes to have us up and running by this afternoon. Meanwhile, this blog update comes to you from my colleague's school-issue Mac laptop. So thank you, Paul, for letting me use it. The school network won't allow me to access my Yahoo email, so it may be a while before I'm able to get to the messages there.

I am tired, not feeling well, and I had to work most of the weekend, which added driving and other stresses to an already stressful situation. Thank God for hot showers and continental breakfast, and Dad getting us a room at the Inn at Port Hadlock to begin with. It's a lovely hotel and having a gauranteed hot shower and breakfast has been comforting.

Listened to the Super Bowl on the radio while unloading a truck at Mervyn's last night. I'm disappointed for the Seahawks but still tremendously proud of them--hey, they made it to the Big Game, right? I do think the Steeler's win is a teensy bit tainted, and that's not just sour grapes. There were some incredibly questionable calls. But its water under the bridge and frankly, I'm more worried about my day-to-day life getting back to normal.

Will keep you updated and hopefully will be powered up again soon.

Cheers,

Little Miss Grumpy