If you’ve seen the national news today or heard any news blips on the radio then you know what life has been like in the Pacific Northwest.  We awoke when the hardest part of the storm hit (around 1:00 am).  It reminded me of sitting through a level 2 hurricane.  Strong storm but not real scary. 

Then we lost power.

Dana got up this morning and headed to work.  AG (for reasons I cannot explain) decided to get up and party at 6:30 a.m.  Thankfully she found my lame attempts at shadow games on the ceiling (I can only make a rabbit and a bird) mildly entertaining.

The day was long.  The day was cold.  And Dana stayed at work.

At noon today it was 43 degrees inside my house.  My car was trapped in the garage because I didn’t know how to release the electric garage door opener (the neighbor has since taught me how to do this).  We had no heat.  No lights.  No phone.  No way to escape to someplace warmer. No anything.

I turned into a shivering, yet blubbering, idiot. 

Then things turned around.  There was a knock at the door.  One of the neighbors realized that I was home alone and probably had no idea what to do to stay warm.  He took AG and I over to his (generator powered) house.  His wife made coffee.  He hooked his generator up to our house.  He got my furnace turned on.  The warmth was wonderful.  The company even more so.

Dana came home.  We looked for a hotel.  The ones anywhere close to us were full.  There were others we could drive over to check on but no guarantees of a room and it would likely take over an hour and a half to get there.  We only had a half of a tank of gas and almost all gas stations in this area are closed due to no power.  We needed to make a plan because the power wasn’t supposed to come on until Sunday or later.  We decided to try to stay here tonight and re-assess things tomorrow.

Around 6:30 tonight Dana and the neighbor were working on the generator when Dana saw a beautiful site.  One of the street lights came on.  Dana and Bob (the neighbor) rushed around and discovered that power had been restored. It has dimmed a few times but so far it is still going strong.  We are very fortunate.  There are still 750,000 homes in the  Puget Sound area with no power.

So at noon I was feeling quite sorry for myself and by dinner time I was feeling very fortunate.

About that time we heard  quite a ruckus outside.  It was Santa.  Atop a fire truck.  He was visiting each street in Enumclaw.   And it gets better.   Anna Grace said Santa Claus – clear as a bell.