11.5.2012

Day 7 - Settled into our new cycle.

Up early. Build up the fire. Toast some bread on a long fork over the coals. Dress the kids and get them to school.

We get a full tank of gas in the car after an hour and a half wait. The airport run is made.

It is Monday morning so I move my drawing table down into the room by the fire, get a large sheet of paper from the studio and work all morning on a new drawing. With all the idle time of the last week, I easily drop into the flow and work as efficiently as ever. The composition and base colors are done by noon.

In the early afternoon we start to hear reports that subdivisions all around us are getting power and every moment we expect to be restored...but nothing happens. We start to worry we will be a special case. There are reports that a Nor' Easter storm is now expected to hit Wednesday and will bring snow and high wind. The temperatures are now below freeing at night.

When the kids get home from school it is almost dark so I fire up the generator and go pick up pizza, fried squid and teriyaki wings. It is now much easier to get gas.

We get fed, warm and showered and the kids are asleep in bed when just after 8pm, almost exactly seven days since it went off, the power comes back on, blinking lights and popping a fuse on the stove.

We are so quickly back into routine that within an hour emails have been checked and I am able to join a conference call in progress.

The week gave me a lot of time to think about how I use energy and what a future of energy shortages might look like. It also gave me a chance to compare the way I live now with how I might live with less.

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