#49 - Friday the 13th in Buffalo (originally posted MySpace 10/14/06)

So it snowed last night.

YES!

S-n-o-w-e-d.

And being a Buffalo gal I was rather blase' about the whole thing.

Unlike my southern born Honey.

He's bantering on about a snowstorm!

A snowstorm!

Yes, right... okay sweety... calm down.

We sit down to watch the late night news, and all local reports are going on about a massive power outage and trees falling and ice and snow and...

I say the bad luck thing you should never say 15 minutes before the clock strikes midnight to Friday the 13th:

"Good thing we still have power."

We hear a clunk and immediately are thrown into toal darkness.

TOTAL can't see your hands in front of your eyes darkness.

poop.

Light some candles and realize that this is going to be a bad one.
First of all it is freezing cold outside and without electricity we have NO HEAT!

And no SNORE MACHINE for Hubby who saws the wood at night like a lumberjack.

I state that I am taking the futon you go sleep in the other end of the Cozy Cottage.

Several candle trips, flashlight checks, goodnight honeys, and many quilts...

I tuck in on the futon surrounded by the kitties and Tilly the Wonder dog.

Tilly?

She only snuggles up like this during a thunderstorm...

and then BLITZ!

Bright blue flashes outside.

Snow lightening.

Trust me it is a sight to see...

especially out here in Cozy Cottage ville where there is no ground light.

So I sleep for a few hours.

Power comes on, power goes off again.

But, no complaints here.

My guys got to stay home.

We had a stuffed animal throwing contest. The best ever.

Little Bear built a fort under the dining room table and all was good here.

A ton of time spent on the phone making sure family members are tended to.

We are the only ones with power we discover.

So I relay the news reports to everyone else and we try to figure out how to get our elderly aunt out of her northern Buffalo home with all the travel bans in force.

My sister, Peg (who also happens to have lupus) is bailing out her basement as it floods. All the trees on her property are no more. She refuses to stay with us... insists on bailing without our help.
Tough gal she is.

:)

Other sis is doing okay.

Trees crashed into her front porch, but she's a Buffalo Gal too...

you take these things in stride. No heat, but plenty of doggies and feeling confident about no heat for the night.

Another sister MIA. No power, no phone. Her cell phone service is out and so is her MEDICAL pager service. She should be fine. Her household is good with weather crisis.

My elderly Mom whose retirement apartments get priority got power by this evening while my elderly in-laws have a possibly live power line lying across the driveway.

But, more news comes rolling in...

WATER EMERGENCY.

I have been chugging tall glasses of tap water all afternoon.

Should have watched the news.

We now have to boil the dink out of the water and conserve.

Latest news report is that we probably won't have water for much longer.

Water shortages have started as there is no power to pump the stuff.

My mom has no water now, and here it is a little after midnight, and I am boiling what water is left.

HAPPY FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH.

We're fortunate, because we have electricity.

Over 380,000 folks in our area are doing without.

We watch the news and see one of our Buffalo theater cronies and his wife hanging out at a local shelter. Good old Les, figures he would nab a photo op out of this mess!

Aieeya!

We probably will have houseguests by tomorrow.

We are hearing that there will be no power in some areas until next week.

Well, then...

life is never dull around here.

And I'm off to boil more water.

Hope I got enough cookies stashed around here to keep Winga out of our hair.