In The Dark

We lost the power today. Late afternoon came and Hubby and the Daughters came home from school. I went out to help Hubby feed the animals and when I came back in the lights were out. Those of you who live in a city or at least a town where water is supplied by the powers that be, won't understand that when your water comes from a cistern that means that you can't use the sh-t-er. So for a few hours you turn red, and squeeze your legs together in the hopes that you won't be the first to leave a deposit that just won't go away. Worse still, once there has been a deposit you really don't want to be the next to have to lift the toilet seat and have to smell the deposit while you add to it. Cisterns mean pumps, pumps mean electricity, electricity means power, no power no flushing. Yuck!

Another negative is that when the power goes off in the winter there is no way to cook in this house. We don't even have a propane barbeque on which we can heat something. Hubby did go out and brave the cold and warm some IMPs on a Coleman stove. Thank God for Mr. Coleman. We as Canadian Rangers leaders have on hand at any given time enough food to keep us through any state of emergency for a week. IMPs are the army's way of feeding soldiers in the field. IMP stands for Individual Meal Packet. These are not the worst thing in life to have to expose yourself to and some of the meals are downright tolerable, but to have to live on them for any length of time is to put yourself through meal monotony. They all have a packaged taste that ruins any other effect that might make them good. They also have a bad effect in that the amount of dietary fibre is just not sufficient to do the job. Not to mention the amount of calories that are meant to enable a soldier to live in strenuous conditions and would pile on the weight for any average joe. A week of IMPs and you wouldn't be able to walk because you would be stuck in the chair since your a-- would be permanently jammed into it from the extra unnecessary fat added. For tonight when the power was off though, IMPs meant full tummies on a cold night.

Speaking of cold.... losing the power here means putting on sweaters and praying that the power comes on again before the pipes freeze. I was just starting to feel chilled when the power came on and the furnace blasted into life again. I can safely say I breathed a sigh of relief.

Also, losing the power means Hubby or I have to take the girls to my parents place for showers so that in the morning they don't look and feel fousty. (Fousty is a Newfy term which you will just have to look up). Tonight Hubby was cajoled into doing that, which meant he had to sit with his in-laws for a period of time. This can or cannot be good depending on whether he is enlisted to fix something. Fixing things irritates Hubby no matter who asks.

All I know is, losing the power is an opportunity to take pleasure in knowing that next year when the renovations are complete and we have a wood stove that heats, cooks, lights, and gives joy to those who need to use the facilities, we won't have to rely on IMPs to take away the need.