Powerless

Just in case you were wondering, yes, I was affected by the ice storm here. I have been without power for the past four days (I'm at the office right now). There are trucks in my neighborhood as of five this evening, but I couldn't tell if they were to fix the lines or trim the tree branches back. The best estimate I've heard is that all of Tulsa will be back to full power by about Tuesday.

I'm more fortunate than most, in that I have gas heat and hot water. So far, I've only been able to spend about an hour by candlelight before screaming "FUCK THIS!" and drive down to orders for coffee/listen to the preview CD's/magic marker the Bill O'Reilly books. The past few nights I've spent time with friends who have electricity, then went home to sleep in my own bed.

Here are some of the highlights of the week.

- Monday night, the storm was still going on, and I had the pleasure of driving past a transformer just as it blew. It took about an hour for my hearing and the ability to control the volume of my voice to regulate itself again.

- We all played Star Wars Monopoly for most of Monday night. a few minutes in, we lost power to half of the house...easily fixed by extension cords from the powered side. The game ended as 99.9% of all Monopoly games end, with everyone starting to take drastic measures to build up every property before abandoning it after about an hour. I got home a little after one.

- Tuesday night, Amy got her power back, so we all huddled at her place, had a home cooked meal and watched a double feature of the Blues Brothers and Stranger Than Fiction.

- On the way home, I got pulled over. Strangely enough, for doing 30 in a 35 MPH zone. The irony is that the cop first yelled at me, "Do you not think the rules apply to you?!?" The cop chewed me out for going too fast on slick streets, and I have a sneaking suspicion he never even ran my license when he went back to his car. I had, in my nervousness, gave him my old insurance card (not this year's), and he never asked me about the whole Oklahoma license/Arkansas tags thing, as every cop who's pulled me over in the past three years has immediately done. I think the cop just wanted to vent.

- Last night was Little Miss Sunshine at Amy's place, followed by a long talk about anything and everything. Home by eleven.

- Today, I made the mistake of driving around near Promenade Mall. The mall has power, but the traffic lights are still out. Holiday shoppers, one car at a time, through every intersection within a mile radius. I coped by sitting there and circling the people I hated around me, one by one...which was pretty much everyone.

- Now, I'm at the office, taking advantage of the satellite TV to watch CSI:. Fortunate that this whole mess happened during a writer's strike. I have one episode of one more show left before they run out of new stuff. After that, I'll be heading to the bar for a couple beers and back home to sleep.