Power Out

This entry is not about work, but about my general experience of the past week.

I am a week beyond than the time I had planned to write.

Even though Louisville is several hundred miles inland, it actually had a hurricane so to speak. In reality it had hurricane-force winds as a result of the weather system that had been “Hurricane Ike.” The Louisville Gas and Electric Company had over 200,000 households without power—two-thirds of its customers.

We lost our power, Sunday, September 14 at about 2:00pm. We just got out power back tonight at about 6:19 Eastern Daylight Time. We had no electricity for just over five days.

Of course like most others in the Louisville Metropolitan Area, we lost the contents of our refrigerator, but we saved most of the meat. We saved the milk. But all kinds of condiments and other items were history. The garbage trucks were extra-heavy with spoiled food.

It was a little freaky driving in my neighborhood in the early evening when none of the street lights or houselights were on. It reminded me of living out in the country.

I had a couple of lessons from this week.

Lesson one is about “awful-izing.”

I have a nurse that does something called “awful-izing.”

There are many ways I can take my analysis of the nurse and the situation. The nurse is clearly a borderline personality who tends to act like she must control. She has no limits and when she cannot control she freaks out.

Awfulizing is one of the feedback loops she has to reinforce her need to control. She talks in extremes.

She comes in each day loud and anxious. She tends to talk about all news as bad news, and she is worried about what will happen if something else happens. I feel sorry for her husband.

Well, for the past four days the recurring question she would ask each day was:did you get your power back? My answer of course for the past four days was “No.” She would reply: “It must be rough.”

I have had to repeat again and again, that we made it through the night just fine. Today I said that I decided that I cannot dwell on things. I do not think that it means anything to her, but it does to me.

Awfulizing is a truly miserable place to be. Very few things are going to be the worst that they could be.

Lesson #2 is about gratitude.

In many ways, I feel that I have little to complain about. For me, life got simpler while the bad news of the week was complicated. I was pleasantly distracted from the news of wall street investment banks Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch (more a brokerage firm) were floundering. I was also distracted from the AIG news for the most part. Sure, I listened to the radio a lot, but there was something good about not seeing the TV day in and day out.

We had to cook outside each day. We had to see in the dark by candle light and flashlight. We utilized the crank radio I found on discount at Walmart.

We had to use ice to keep things cold. Getting ice was far easier this time than the last time the power was out for an extended period of time several years back. I found an automated ice house that gave either a 16-lb bag or 22 lbs of bulk ice for $2.00 a shot. My employer gave out bag ice too. Walmart and Kroger (the primary local grocery chain) seemed to have ice when we needed it. We had the ice we needed in general.

What kept me grounded was thinking about how blessed we were. I remember reading about life in third-world/undeveloped world cities where people are crowded in urban areas where they do not even have the basic utilities of water and sewer, and law enforcement is crooked. I still had a decent house (not so great by American standards) that 95 percent of the world population would be thrilled to live in.

I thought it was cool that we were roasting marshmallows outside over the remaining charcoal.
It was good to talk to the kids around the charcoal and talk about how we really had a lot despite not having power.

I was more mindful in my saying the bedtime prayer for my kids. While I wanted to pray for the power to come back on, I was all the more mindful of how blessed we still were to have what we have.

I did have a few thoughts about what would happen if the power were turned off because of my losing my job or my not being able to afford the bill. To be honest with you, I did not let myself go there for too long. Maybe it was God's blessing, or maybe I was just too tired with going to work, and then coming home to have to cook each night on the camping stove or grill.

For now, the chapter is over. While I have had my lessons, I am actually glad that the power is back on. Not having your electricity in a house meant for electricity is stressful. I did not sleep as well despite actually going to bed earlier. My allergies got worse through the week without air conditioning in the house. But not having power for a week was tolerable and actually probably good for my soul overall.

In my next installment , I am going to talk about my work issues of the past week that were somewhat related to having the power out, but that may be more about tough times pertaining to work.