Day Nine without Power in Paducah

[Please Note: For those of you who read my yesterday's post that said ABC's Peter Jennings introduced a report about Paducah on the news that night, know that that was a mis-type on my part. Poor Peter Jennings did not return from the grave to introduce a story about Paducah. It was actually NBC's Brian Williams.]

Wednesday greetings from Thunderdome.

I am coming to you today through a combination of the miracle of chemistry and a grant from the Brimstone Corporation, plain and simple. After nine days of darkness in suburbia, I am not the only one at the end of my tether. One might expect such lag time in a cabin perched on a remote crag of, say, Brockeback mountain. Within spitting distance of the mall and a major interstate? Not so much.

The fact that my suburban street remains a pocket of darkness surrounded by a sea of light has now become newsworthy. A WPSD-TV news crew filed a report yesterday interviewing on-site one man without power on one side of my street and a woman directly opposite him across the street who does. I cannot find the story posted on the website or I'd link. It's aired at least once; I saw it on the six o'clock news cast this morning after firing up the Husky in the bitter eleven degree cold with a wind chill that I know was much lower.

My evening was brightened last night considerably by a visit from my young friend Stephanie. Her power, praise be, was restored the day before yesterday and she stopped by to check on me last night as opposed to basking in the warmth of her newly electrified house. She entertained me with stories of her stuggle to keep her one pet, a fancy-finned beta fish named Ramone, alive throughout the disaster.

Poor Ramone withstood quite an ordeal, first enduring the cold at Stephanie's until he began swimming sideways and looking panicky. Stephanie, having braved a night without heat decided to evacuate, but first ran a steamy shower warming the bathroom and then slid Ramone's bowl in wrapped in a towel to hopefully benefit from the steamy warmth while she was gone. She returned the next day to find what initally looked like an empty fish bowl (Stephanie suspected suicide). Upon closer examination, she realized Ramone had pre-buried himself in the gravel at the bottom of the bowl, his near-lifeless fins just barely visible above the gravel. Knowing Ramone was near death, Stephanie wrapped the bowl in a towel and cradled it close to her body for warmth on the trip to her in-law's house. Once there, Ramone emerged from his gravel grave just long enough to take up residence inside a conch shell also in his bowl. This is where Ramone remained until power was restored at Stephanie's and he was able to return to his normal shelf in Stephanie's kitchen. At last report, Ramone seems to have made a full recovery, and is enjoying fresh water in his bowl.

Stephanie and I agreed that while Ramone's physical ordeal is over, his emotional scars will likely require years of therapy.

Sorta like the rest of us.