Babe gathers information for The Feline Report of activities outside in the yard from his comfortable heated offices above the radiator on the kitchen counter this morning.
"I must say, travelers were much more polite without the traffic lights telling them what to do," imails our sis, filing her report from the trenches on the consequences — unanticipated and otherwise — of the massive power outages left in the wake of Thursday night's ice storm to the north, west and south of us here in outage-free Chelsea-by-the-Sea. Goomp, reporting from the rocky coast of Maine, has been without power for 60 hours now. The generator covers heat and lights in parts of the house, and after some false starts he's finally got a working cell phone by his side, but no internet access 'cause the cable's down too. We miss his comments on the blog!
Framed by early Christmas cards and a birthday card of The Babe's lookalike that we give Tuck every year, he pauses in his observations for a little introspection.
Excerpts from that imail conversation:
She: I went into a convenience store to buy some bread, and they were SOLD OUT! The store looked like a Soviet grocery. Nothing on any of the shelves. I crossed the bridge to Newburyport, and the local White Hen Pantry was BULGING with wares. Panic is an awful thing.
We: Bush's fault! Obama will fix it. Why can't we just make him president NOW?
She: I've heard several people comment, as did you, "Katrina without all the water."
We: Under the radar, though, as I said, since it can't be blamed on GW, and it's just one more inconvenient truth for Al Gore.
She: In NH, where outages may last many days, the reports are that "We can weather this."
We: One of the commenters at TigerHawk was hoping the hardship might drive out the lily-livered Democrats and return NH to its natural red state.
She: NH folks aren't looking for a freebie bailout. I WISH I had bought stock in generators, though. They are FLYING off the shelves. Alaska is the new New Hampshire. The last frontier. Lily livers have invaded, just as bittersweet, bindweed, kudju and others have choked out growth.
Under the dining room table, Tiny searches for the superball that has momentarily bounced away from her grasp.
"Just got a snail call," we i'd back:
We: Dad saying we may not be able to have Christmas up there because it's "such a mess." We could certainly have it here. The tree's all lit up and ready to roll. But here's the GOOD news . . . Chris has just arrived at Goomp's door!
She: Saint Christian has arrived, oil [for the generator] in hand!
We: He is our savior.
She: The new anointed one, speaking of oil.
We: Chris is exercising his calling as a healer of souls. Has he ever considered the ministry? ;-)
A Miss Moppet Moment: Where did the
mouseball go?
"Storm forces New Englanders to Shelters," says the FoxNews banner as Bret Baier asks a Red Cross representative how much longer it should be before the lights come back on for our suffering friends and neighbors all over New England:
Right now they're saying within the next 48 to 78 hours.
She crouches in preparation for going for the jugular.
The lights across the river from Camelot-by-the-Sea and along Rte 1 are already back on, but Goomp's somewhat remote location may mean his branch of the network has been triaged for later. He does share that part of the grid that supplies the local elementary school, and tomorrow is Monday, so we're thinking Central Maine Power may well intend to get things up and running in time for classes. If they won't do it for Goomp, maybe they'll do it for the children.
Update: We're with Artsy Catsy big time on this one. Forget the children. This one's FOR THE CATS, Carnival of the Cats #248.
Update II: All animals all the time at Modulator's Friday Ark #222.
There are already many schools in Central Mass that have declared closed for Monday and Tuesday. Some of those have power, but are being used as shelters for those with no power.
Nothing is more frustrating than seeing the power on nearby. We had houses on our street that had power last night - but it didn't reach us until late today. Very very luckily, even though our meter has been pulled off the wall - the lines are okay and they let us have power. Otherwise we'd still be sitting in the dark blackberry blogging.
Yay for Chris! What a guy! I'm so glad he's helping to keep Goomp's generator going!
Posted by: Teresa | December 14, 2008 at 11:48 PM
69 hours and 30 minutes without power in a house that is all electric ain't no fun, but now with hot water again and telephone again and cable for the internet, things are looking up. Still no TV.
Posted by: goompa | December 15, 2008 at 06:17 PM
Head over to Hulu.com or some of the other television stations like NBC. If you have internet, you can run the shows through your computer. :-)
Posted by: Teresa | December 15, 2008 at 06:49 PM