Power Woes

For the past two weeks, temperatures have been in the 30’s at our little garage in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Luckily, it’s been considerably warmer inside… well, most of the time at least. Two weeks ago, we lost power in the early morning hours. We went about our day, hoping the power would be on after work. When evening came and the power had still not returned, we figured perhaps the next day… this cycle of hope and disappointment continued for five days before our power finally returned. That bit of back story is important in understanding the events that transpired last night.

Our power had gone out overnight earlier this week so when the lights blinked and finally failed tonight, I had definitely had enough. Steve and I piled in his truck on a mission. We drove through the snowy mountain roads (did I mention that it’s been snowing this week?), through the fog to get into town. We went straight to CostCo and bought a generator.

Of course, as you cannot simply give a mouse a cookie, you cannot just buy a generator. You have to buy extension cords to bring the power into the house, an “approved” container for the gas to run the generator and, of course, fill it with actual fuel. We had accomplished all of these errands except the fuel purchase when Steve suggested we call home to see if, by some miracle, the power had come back on while we were out (the power goes out enough here in the mountains that we figured out a way to check if we have electricity from in town… we call home and if the answering machine picks up, we know the power’s on). Anyway, I called… ring… ring… ring… ring… “hi, you’ve reached Steven and Elizabeth Loveridge, leave a message” beep! Sitting the parking lot of the gas station, Steve and I looked at each other for a long moment. Steve starting chuckling, to which I naturally responded “this is not funny.”

So, now we have a new coffee table. We figure that if we return the generator, Murphy’s Law will ensure that we don’t have power for the rest of the winter. Perhaps the price of the generator (and accessories) is a small price to pay to scare the Mother Nature into preserving our electricity.