“We now live in a shed,” I told Helaine. That’s what our house has turned into. A two story unheated shed! There is nothing romantic about living in a shed. Any upside to ‘roughing it’ left after the first few hours without electricity late Saturday.
Yesterday afternoon one of our neighbors spoke with a dispatcher at United Illuminating. He told her we’d have lights by midnight last night. This is the fifth different anticipated repair time we’ve received.
I haven’t heard this much story telling since I was hitting on college girls in the 60s!
Once the sun went down Helaine was stuck in the house… in the dark… in the cold. Wearing a coat and wrapped in an afghan she has been listening non-stop to WFAN on the transistor radio that normally hangs in the shower. What else is there to do?
“Hi Mike, it’s Helaine in Hamden,” she could say if her cellphone had a charged battery. Of course it does not.
I checked when I came home from work. It was 48° in the bedroom. Helaine wanted to cuddle. I was truly the proverbial warm body!
Our bathrooms are unflushable. One has been dedicated to a single function. The door remains closed 24/7.
I sat up in the family room for a while after work last night. I used half the newspaper, but finally lit a fire and burned our remaining wood. I’d make a terrible arsonist.
All I could think of was an ad that used to hang in Willie’s Hardware on Horace Harding Blvd. in Flushing while I was growing up. It was for CorningWare and showed a dish half in ice, half in fire. That was me–warm back, cold face.
I have no idea how families with children or folks not in good health are getting along. I really hope there is a way to take care of them first.
UI is down to 991 customers out in Hamden. How much longer til they get to us?
