First it was flooding – which brought in Red Cross relief, then it was ice – which shut down most of the Seattle area for a day, and last week it was wind – which cast over a million people into the dark.
Last week’s itinerary:
Thursday 11pm: power goes out
Friday morning: still no power. Ari heads to work, but no lights on anywhere between house and office. Eventually he comes home.
Friday afternoon: accept C&Ks offer to stay in front of a warm fireplace.
Friay night: light the menorah – first night of channukah. pasta dinner cooked over an outdoor firepit. sleep in front of the downstairs fireplace.
Saturday: learned more about power outage. about 1.5 million without power Friday morning. According to this Seattle P-I article:
“Local residents called it one of the worst storms in memory. Meteorologists said it ranked among the most severe storms in the record books.”
brunch is pancakes and eggs cooked over the firepit, then off to meet MK at the Brown Bag Cafe – now with restored power. accepted MK’s housing offer after checking up on Tegan. House is cold, neither the gas fireplace nor stove are lighting. exchange numbers with the neighbors. sleeping graduates to a futon.
Sunday: find out timeline for power recovery: tuesday night best case, wednesday most likely, friday latest. call neighbors – update them and request a sitter for Tegan. remember i need my laptop for work and wind up going home. ari gets fire and stove lit and we rearrange furniture – i inform the neighbors. accept B&Bs housing offer – graduate to a room with a queen bed and our own bathroom. arrive to find a menorah set up and hosts excited to light candles – extremely touching considering they are not jewish (though B does have a jewish family history i believe).
Monday: new power recovery timeline: friday to saturday. simeon still can’t go to daycare (been exploding too much since thursday) so no work or daycare. help our hosts prepare for their pizza party in the evening. have other housing offers, but stay put for simeon’s sake – thank goodness for wonderful friends. C even brings over the highchair in the evening.
Tuesday: updated timeline: potentially tuesday night. ari takes our hosts to the airport and then goes by the house. turns on fire and stovetop for warmth, cuddles with tegan, visits the neighbors, cleans out the fridge and unplug electronics. simeon is doing wonderfully and daycare is a go. receive call around 8pm that lights have returned along the parkway. another call around 9 or 10…still no lights at home. email around 11pm from the mayor (who lives a couple blocks down the street) power has returned.
Wednesday: 7am call from the neighbor that power is back! i was out of bed but not totally awake and she could hear it in my voice. Ari packs some and heads home after lunch to clean. i clean out the freezer later that night. We all finally get to sleep in our own beds again. Yay!
THANK YOU!
I want to extend a thank you to everybody who offered their homes to all of us – Ari, Simeon, Tegan and me:
- C&K – friday night in front of a warm fire with a means to eat warm food. C then later brings over the highchair to our latest residence in Bellevue.
- MK – saturday night on a futon with electricity and an extremely irritable boy (2 hours to put down and 1 hour of screaming middle of the night)
- B&B – Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights with our own room and bathroom. Offered to have us bring Tegan and let us house sit while out of town
- MV – not only invited us to his one-bedroom condo, but offered to sleep on the couch and give us the bedroom.
- A&M – offer a room in their house with electricity, hot water and friends
- RC – offered a warm bedroom and a suspension of the ‘no electronics in the living room’ rule
- M&S – not only offered a downstairs bedroom to us, but having already accepted another offer, offered the room again to Tegan.
- M&D – I think M was out of town, but D offered a spare room, and also offered to host Tegan.
- D&J – though not much room available and a busy schedule, D offered a kid-friendly place with a friend for Simeon.
- L family – offered room in their kid-friendly house with a couple of playmates for Simeon.
I apologize if I have missed anybody else’s offer. Feel free to remind me so I can add you to the list.
Not the Channukah I expected, but I don’t know how much warmer and brighter it could have felt. As much as I’m looking foward to finally opening the channukah gifts our family sent, I continue to be reminded how lucky we are to have such wonderful friends.
Old arrangement (2005) but this is the piece that was the root of the necessary change. Big, bulky and took up too much of the room – hiding an entire wall. It also limited our options since things like windows and the fireplace can’t really move. Though I can’t say that stopped us from trying every possible arrangement.
No more of any one piece taking up too much space. We can enjoy the TV and the fireplace. And still room for Simeon to play. I find it amazing how much that wall inset makes a difference to the appearance of the shelving. That unit is at least 6 inches taller than the one along the red wall.
Piya's Perspective 