The Friday after Thanksgiving may be the traditional “Black Friday,” but this past Friday was a literal “black-out” day. Actually, it was a black-out night.
The lights went out in Honolulu and the whole island of Oahu around 6:30 p.m. and stayed off all through the night. They’re still not sure what caused the outage (are they ever?), but they suspect an electrical storm on the Leeward coast.
We’ve been through this before, so we turned on the wind-up radio and learned that the entire island was dark. Fortunately, I’d just gotten out of the shower so I didn’t have to conserve hot water like the rest of the family. We broke out the flashlights and battery lamps and I repaired to the bedroom where I cracked open a book for the first time in a long time (usually I just read on airplanes).
Reaffirmations: It’s difficult to do crossword puzzles with a wind-up flashlight, and reading in the rather dim and flickering spotlight the flashlight produces is hard on the eyes.
Around 10 p.m., I just gave up, turned off the flashlight and went to sleep. It’s amazing how much I missed my TV and DVD player.
6 comments:
We are all spoiled rotten ... don'tchathink?
I always think blackouts are romantic ... for about 30 minutes. Then boredom and irritation sets in. Especially when it goes on long enough that I don't want to open the fridge (and, of course, everything I want to eat is in there!).
I was wondering how you fared with that situation. I'd do much the same thing. I'm as spoiled as everyone else. I like my "amenities".
I'm glad your power finally came back on. We had the same thing happen here in St. Thomas the day before Thanksgiving. No power for about 24 hours. It's amazing how much we take for granted the small comforts.... like electricity.
I remember when the children were little and the lights went out, we would take the flashlight and make shadow shapes with our hands. My kids have fun memories of that.
I'm blaming my son Carl. The last time he was here was in 2006 when he came back for my retirement party. The day of the party we had a huge blackout that lasted a couple of days (the result of the Big Island earthquake). Then this happens the day after he arrives again.
Post a Comment