Rant #2,047: Black Is Blech

Yesterday, as I was putting the finishing touches on Rant No. 2,046, everything went off in the house, and we had a power failure in my neck of the woods.

And what made this even stranger for me is that the power failure happened at around 4:45 a.m.

We have had power failures where I live, but few during the near-winter time period and even fewer early in the morning like this.

Of course, I was up, literally writing up the last sentence of that Rant, and then, poof!, everything went black.

You could not see anything around the house, so I felt the walls as I moved into the kitchen to retrieve my handy cellphone, which I would use as a light until I could get to a flashlight we have by the regular landline phone.

I got that, and as I did that, I went outside to get our delivered newspapers, and lo and behold, every house as far as the eye could see showed that not a single residence had power at that time.

I guess for most people, 4:45 a.m. is a good time to have a power failure, as most of us are asleep.

But not me, of course. I had been up since 3:30 a.m, which is when I wake up during weekdays.

I have things to do, and that is why I wake up so early.

And I can do it because I am a light sleeper to begin with, although I do like my sleep.

I was able to use my phone, so for the remainder of the time we did not have electricity, I was on the phone, even being able to put up a message on Facebook, telling people of the situation and alerting them to the fact that my daily Rant would be delayed until we could get our power back.

I went into Facebook, and then my email, then Facebook again, and that is pretty much where I stayed when the lights came on, about an hour after the power failure began.

Once the lights came on, since I have a modern house, many things had to be reset, and I didn't have enough time to do them all while I was home.

Our living room TV, a source of consternation to begin with, is not working properly, and I was hoping that the burst of power we got did not harm it for good.

Well, it did not harm the TV, but it harmed the satellite receiver that we use, and that has to be replaced. The thing simply does not light up anymore, so I think that even while hooked up to the surge protector, either the surge when the power went down or the surge when the the power came back knocked the thing out, and last night, I called Dish Network to get a new receiver,

I checked on the other TVs, brought them up to where they should be, reset my clock, and then went to deal with our Dot, Alexa, who can be a real pain in the tuckis to begin with.

Well, Alexa was giving me problems, but with the assistance of my wife, I got it back to where it should be.

I still have to help my mother to get her Dot ready to go, which I had no time to do yesterday, but perhaps I can do tonight.

This is pure torture, but I am happy it all worked out.

None of us really know how much we rely on our electric power to keep our dwellings running ship shape. Heck, what did people do before they had electrical power?

I know, lighting candles and lamps was the way to go, and I guess for those times, that was as high tech as it got.

But in today's world, everything taps into the electricity, and when you lose it, you are sunk.

In particular at 4:45 a.m. in the morning.

And without a generator, we are truly in the black at that time of day.

I can't complain that much, because we haven't had a long power failure like this since the summer, I do believe.

This one came so suddenly, and left so abruptly, that I just want to forget it.

Yes, it was a fun day in the house in the early morning yesterday, and it was so much fun that I hope it never happens again.

Heck, I went through the famous 1965 blackout, and if I never go through another one, that will be more than fine with me.

And all this happened during Hanukkah yet.

"The Festival of Lights" ... yesterday morning, it was more of "The Festival of Dark" than anything else.