Day 1754

Our power is still out. We have basically been reduced to camping out in our house. It finally dawned on me today that the dishwasher full of dirty dishes wasn't going to wash itself and the washing machine full of dirty clothes and towels weren't going to get clean by themselves. I found some dish soap and washed the dishes by hand and then I gathered up the dirty clothes and towels in a big duffel bag and went looking for a laundromat.

The only time I ever go to a laundromat is when there is a power outage, or when the washing machine is broken. I wish I could avoid laundromats altogether. This was a fairly typical laundromat. There was a crazy man talking loudly to himself while transferring his clothes from a black garbage bag to one of the washers. There was a very large woman who kept her cell phone, and apparently everything else she owned, in her bra. There were enough rowdy children to start a daycare center. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. Unfortunately, I had to stay quite a while, because someone had forgotten to clean the lint filters on the dryers and it took forever for my towel load to dry.

When I finished doing my laundry, I went to a nearby Home Depot to look at generators. There weren't any. Apparently, the store had completely sold out of all their generators two days ago. When I was still being optimistic about getting the power restored, everyone else was out buying a generator. Every time the power goes out, I think about getting a generator. Unfortunately, I've got no place to keep a decent one. It would either get ruined sitting outside in the weather, or it would get stolen. If you've got a big generator, you need a garage to keep it in. If you've got a little generator, why even bother.

I finally saw someone from the power company in the neighborhood today. These guys weren't fixing anything. They were just the "assessment team," that looks for damage before the repair crews come out later. I asked the guys if the saw the downed power line in my neighbor's yard. They said they hadn't seen any downed lines in the area, so I took them back in the alley and showed them the dangling wire. "Wow. That's the problem," one of the men said. "This is why the lights are out on your street." I'm glad I ran into these guys. They were from out of state and didn't know the area. They may have never found a single downed power line hidden in an obscure alley.

We got the cooler out of the storage warehouse and bought a couple of bags of ice, but the refrigerator ended up being a lost cause anyway. We had waited too long and ended up just throwing everything away. Luckily, the refrigerator and freezer were fairly empty, so we didn't loose much. It was sad to lose all the Gelato in the freezer though. I love Gelato.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Probably more of the same. The power outage is so massive that it will be a miracle if our power is restored tomorrow.  I am starting to see a bunch of out of state power company trucks driving around town today though. That's always a good sign.

Jersey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day