unseen Powers and how we depend on Them

It is all around us. Invisible, yet powerful. It permeates our lives, although we think of it seldom.

It times of deepest darkness, we cry out for it.

Electricity.

Ah, yes.

So, on Monday, my dh (dear husband) and I were watching TV (television) when we heard a chirping. We heard it a few times.

WHAT was that noise?

It was the smoke detector. But why?

DH turned on the hall light to check. The hall light came on, but dimly. Then it got brighter again.

Hmm....

DH went and checked the circuit breaker box and toggled some switches. Still the occasional fades of power on certain switches.

Odd.

So we went to bed. I read for a while before turning off my bed-lamp-- which would occasionally dim to night-light levels, then after a bit return to read-lamp levels.

Odd.

So, we were already determined we might have to bring in more electronically-minded folk than we-- and then we got up to:

NO WATER.

Our water pump was NOT working. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Feh!

We splashed water on our faces from our filtered-water cache, and rinsed our tooth-brushes with mouthwash. We went to spend the day at work and then we went to a hotel!! with an appointment the next day with an electrician. This was Tuesday night, planning to meet with the electrician on Wednesday.

The electrician arrived on Wednesday. After the embarrassing ordeal of walking through our cluttered basement to the circuit breaker box, the electrician came up with the good news-bad news results.

The good news: the house did not burn down, although it could have from the shorts in the box.

The bad news: due to water coming in to the circuit breaker box, we needed to replace the entire box.

The more bad news: this could not be done till the following day.

The more more bad news (from me): I must throw out the contents of our refrigerator.

I waited for DH to come home from the board meeting he had to attend that night. I thought he would be home about 7:00 or 7:30 pm and we would go out to dine and then perhaps book another hotel (no water means no shower and perhaps even more critical NO FLUSHING OF TOILETS!).

DH's board meeting ran until past 9:00 pm. He was wiped out. So, I fixed him a drink, then we went out to eat (and washed up at the restaurant in the bathroom!) and came home to sleep.

The next day, Thursday, the electrician returned and all is now repaired.

I don't know how much this all ended up costing; however, hot showers and flushing toilets: priceless!

What I did today... and yesterday...

Yesterday I emptied my refrigerator. Because I live in Michigan, I could put all my refrigerator items in the garage because we only had a high today of 40 degrees.

I unplugged the refrigerator and propped the doors open.

I threw away *sigh* a bunch of food, as the fridge had not been fridging very well.

That was yesterday. Today I finished cleaning the thawed and melted refrigerator. I cleaned the floor underneath it (OMG WAS THAT GROSS). I plugged the fridge back in and put a refrigerator thermometer in it.

It has been about 12 hours. The temperature has now gotten down to.. 50.

There may be a refrigerator shopping spree in the future. The near future.