This past weekend I have enjoyed reconnecting with my ancestors’ pre-bandwidth lives. Our DSL internet lines went down first. . . email came through and then an annoying message from Outlook Explorer “searching… searching… searching.” Finally, it became obvious that this was a serious problem.
When I called the telephone company, they suggested working on the phone lines first; “don’t you notice the poor connection?” And I was so focused on the internet, that I was ignoring the snap, crackle, pop of the phone wires. Sure, fix the phone lines.
Then, they were dead too.
Silence.
More silence.
It was raining in Southern California (don’t believe what you hear in songs) and our wires were FRIED! The repairman could not come for two days.
So, I organized my genealogy papers, cleaned up my desk, and finally curled up in front of the fireplace with a book. Afternoons with Emily became “evenings” and I managed to spend a wonderful weekend enjoying my cozy home with a book. Haven’t done that in a while!
When the repairman arrived, to nod his approval at Mr. Curator’s “fixes,” our phone and DSL service was revived. Alas, the novel is too good to put down.
I can’t imagine being without electricity for two weeks. You have to get pretty creative with children in the house, but, as you say, you will remember the experience forever.
We lost power for 14 days with Hurricane Ike. Though there were trying times, I can honestly say we have some good memories from that powerless time. Maybe we should schedule our own power outages once in a while.