Day Four with NO Power & NO Heat

Loyal readers of this blog, I am writing to you from my desk at work (something I rarely if ever do, as I do try to draw a line between my professional life and my personal life and my blog is definitely part of my personal life), but alas, sometimes exceptions must be made, and I think that four days of no power (no electricity, NO HEAT, no internet access, no cable TV) as a result of an ice storm that blew into Oklahoma on Sunday night and stayed until late Monday afternoon and took down many, many tree branches (and trees) along with power lines, fences, and utility poles that fell across streets, cars, driveways and sidewalks is a reasonable excuse to deviate from my usual practice of keeping my personal tasks separate from my professional life. I didn't venture out of my house until Monday afternoon spending most of the day on hold with the Public Service (sic) Company of Oklahoma attempting to report a downed power line that was in my backyard. Around 3:00pm I went outside and tried my best to move the six or seven large branches that had fallen out of the oak tree in my backyard, all the while staying clear of the largest branch that took out a section of my fence and the already mentioned downed power line.

I have been weathering the chill better than most as I have an excellent sleeping bag (rated to 20 degrees) and two very warm doggies who sleep with me every night. I also have the benefit of a gas-top stove so I can heat water and soup and make grilled cheese sandwiches (a food I have been craving - comfort, I suppose). Also I have managed to hook up a small radio with a pair of cheap speakers so that I can listen to NPR in the mornings and by hooking up my MP3 player at night I can listen to my StephCast which has been a godsend - nothing is more pathetic than sitting alone in one's living room in front of a lone candle in silence - I have avoided this pathetic fate because 1) I am not alone - I have the wonderful company of my two best friends (Tulsey and Dylan), and 2) I am not sitting in silence - see earlier reference to my jerry-built radio/MP3 player. So I am not complaining although those of you who tuned into the SMS yesterday morning may disagree - I had to call in and tell the residents of an albeit chillier-than-usual Southern California that they had little room to bitch. Jim apparently was late to the studio because he had to scrape frost off his windshield - at least he didn't have to scrape frost off his toilet seat before his morning ablutions.

Dear readers, I will keep you posted on how long I will be forced to live here in the cold, dark house on the prairie - PSO is predicting that we may have power by sometime next week, but the weather folks are predicting snow for the weekend, so who knows what the next week will bring us as we tough it out here in the middle of America? Keep us in your thoughts and send warm wishes our way - we could sure use the heat =)