DISASTER DAY #3 AND INTO THE NIGHT

Once I leave the bank after my Flypaper for Freaks Parking Lot Debacle experience, I realize that my sense of humor and normalcy seem to be returning. Oh, sure, I have to go three towns away to cash a check, and I have to hop, skip, and jump to get to a grocery store, but really, now that I can access my (dark and powerless) house, I feel relaxed.

I continue driving around after the bank trip because I need to charge up my phone and the battery pack, which should feel like a chore, but the fog is finally starting to burn off, and it's nice to be out in the light and have the windows open.  I turn on the radio and start jamming along to the music, something I haven't even considered in seventy hours. I mosey around observing the stillness of everything.  So many evacuees have yet to venture back that it's like driving into a ghost town.

It is a ghost town.

I decide to head home for a while, and I pull around the corner from my house when I spot the utility trucks.  In the five hours since I first noticed them in front of my house, they've moved maybe fifty yards.  I pass the emergency team that gave me the all-clear yesterday, and they're going door to door with a locksmith.  Despite all this activity, still, I have zero power.

If I'm going to do this (staying in the Red Zone), I'm going to need more ice for the coolers.  And more food.  Maybe some gin.  If I'm going to barbecue, cleaning the grill will be an issue.  Without hot water and without power to make hot water, I can use the grill like a regular burner, so I wander around the store trying to decide what to do.  Then I remember the freezer has defrosted, and I have bread and rolls up the whazoo.  I also know from my disposable camping days that I can use foil pie plates for cooking.  I grab tonic water (I already have limes), ice, heavy duty foil, foil pie plates, tomatoes (I have mozzarella in the cooler and basil growing on the patio), and hot dogs.

Once I'm back home and settled, I make a Caprese salad.  I figure I should grill before it gets dark, so I make four hot dogs: 1-2 for now and the rest for later as needed.  I set up my foil fry pan and ... voila ... ten minutes later, life is complete with fried dogs and no grill to scrub.  I mix myself up a gin and tonic because, hey, why not, and wait for the sun to go down.

While it's still light out, I turn down my bed upstairs, determined to sleep in it tonight regardless of how dark it gets.  I also decide that if cars can go on my street and if we can be grilling, then I can have candles in the house, so I set up the kitchen table with enough candlelight to do some puzzles.

My phone is getting low, but I don't want to leave the house tonight to find a charging station.  Coming home in that pitch blackness freaked me out last night, and it's just as dark tonight.  Yesterday I grabbed my work laptop just in case, so I use up its full battery (except for about 23 minutes worth) to charge both my cell and the battery pack for the overnight.

I try to go upstairs to bed, but it's still too dark and too horrifyingly silent.  I set up a second make-shift bed on a different piece of furniture and sleep in the living room one more time.  I say "sleep," and it's more than I have gotten in the last two nights, but it's fitful.  The utility company is still nearby, up the next street over, and I do hear them working off and on during my restless rest, but it's light when I awaken, and I have my car, so I'll probably get ready to go out and get more tea after I make myself somewhat presentable with whatever means cold water will allow.

This is how Day #4 starts, and it rapidly changes from here.