Father Time
Saturday, May 31, 2008 at 06:48AM So, yesterday morning we had a violent spring storm. You know the kind; high winds, black sky, horizonal trees--amazingly rapid onset, wild and brief. Must've been around 10:30.
We lost and regained electricity multiple times in a very short period of time. As soon as I realized the storm was here, I tried valiently to shut the computers down before it hit. It was during shut down that the on again, off again power surges happened, so I am happy to even have a computer that works this morning. (After various disc checks and reboots and alarmingly scary Microsoft error messages, everything SEEMS to be working except my active desktop. I still can't get past the Active Desktop Recovery page.)
Back to my story. So we lost electricity, but we didn't think too much about it. That happens. Out came the sun and dried up all the rain. It got hot and humid. Tom came home about 3:00 because they'd lost power at work, too. We fooled around all afternoon without electricity.
It was strange. So many things I wanted needed to do. Just regular Friday stuff like laundry and vacuuming. I was going to shampoo the rug on the front porch. Couldn't use my light board. Couldn't download the birdy videos I took before the storm. Couldn't work on the Sunday bulletin or type up my Sunday School lesson.
So I read. And listened to Deathly Hallows on my iPod. And cleaned the bathroom. And wasted time. And called ComEd for updates about when the power would be restored.
By 5:00, we decided we better go to the store and pick up something to throw on the grill for supper. By 6:30 we decided we better do something about the food in the refrigerators and freezers, so out came the chest coolers and ice. We packed all the frozen stuff into the big chest freezer and crossed our fingers.
We played Nertz by the light of the oil lamps. We all sat around together and talked about the places we've lived and all the other times we've been without electricity. We reminised and told stories and called ComEd. Floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, Nor'Easters, blizzards. They were all discussed.
Around 8:00, the ComEd recording estimated that power would be restored to our town by May 31st, 5 pm. A more specific recording based on our street address told us we could have power by 11:50 pm.
And so we started the Father Time game. This is a family estimating game, usually played in the car on the way home from a long drive. Sometimes we estimate how long until the pizza arrives or how long Jake will take in the shower. Tom always wins, usually within a few minutes of his estimate.
I, being the most upbeat and optomistic, said the power would be on by 9:07. Tom said 10:42. Sam claimed all the minutes in the 10:40ish range. Jake, our pessimist, said 11:20.
By 10:30 we had talked ourselves out. There was nothing else to do except blow out the lanterns and candles and go to bed, which we did.
The power came back at precisely 11:20. Jake now holds the title of Father Time.
Reader Comments (3)
Wow! We were only out of power for about three hours! The excitement was all over by the time Andy came home. He said lots of traffic lights were out once he got to Crystal Lake, as well as tree branches all over, but the storm evidently didn't hit anywhere closer in to his work.
I can view short power outages as an adventure, but when it's all day my dependency on electricity becomes very evident and it turns into a distinct disadvantage. I'm glad you didn't have to wait longer than you did!
Hi, I found your blog post through a search for "Nertz". It is cool to see others that know about the game. I hope you don't mind but I wanted to let you know about playnertz.com, the site for the National Nertz Association. There is a bunch of interesting Nertz information there and you can also find out how to play Nertz online there. I hope you will check it out. Feel free to join and also let your friends and family know. Thanks