At work on Friday around 4 p.m. this violent storm passed through the city. It was really creepy looking outside from the office windows. The sky turned black, the wind swirled at high speeds and sheets of rain were coming down sideways. This storm passed quickly through the area but it left its mark on the city which I experienced firsthand.
Since it looked nasty outside, I stayed at work later so I wouldn’t have to deal with the elements outside. I travelled on the train home and things were going smoothly until we were informed that the switches were affected by the storm and they had to be changed manually. This meant that the train would go to a stop and then wait there for about 5 minutes then move to the next stop and wait there 5 minutes and then go to the next station. This went on for about 5 stops. This was a very long train ride home. The fun didn’t end there for me. When I got home, I found out that our electricity went out about 5 p.m.
I didn’t realize all the things you can’t do without electricity until Friday. The microwave doesn’t work (can’t defrost anything), you can’t do any wash, you can’t watch TV or listen to radio, you can’t use the computer (no internet connection), your house phone doesn’t work, you don’t want to open the fridge or freezer so things stay cold as much as possible, the air conditioning doesn’t work, when it gets dark you can’t see things in the house unless you use a flashlight or candles.
Since I wasn’t dealing well with this chain of events, we went out for dinner to pass the time. When we got home we just went to bed using a combination of a flashlight and candles to navigate through the house. Thankfully it wasn’t that warm outside so the house was bearable for sleeping without air conditioning. I turned the switch in the kitchen on so when the electricity went on, I would know it.
When I woke up to go running on Saturday, still no electricity. This is not good. The good thing was that it was light outside so I could move around the house freely to get ready. For our group run this week we ran 7 miles. It seemed really hot out today when we ran. I am never going to complain about running in 40 degree weather again. When I got home from the run, still no electricity. The good thing was that there was hot water for me to take a shower afterwards.
I was really glad that we were celebrating Father’s Day on Saturday at my parent’s house since she was going to feed us since our food choices were limited in the house. We lingered at my parent’s house since they had air conditioning and we didn’t. When we went home, the electricity was back on. I was so excited about getting electricity back that I did the Snoopy Happy Dance. This was really unexpected since ComEd told us it could be days before our electricity was back. Now my life can back to normal.
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