1. I’m still not on speaking terms with SNOW, in case anyone is wondering…

2. This “cold/allergy” thing MUST END! I am so sick of being sick. After sneezing no less than 100 times at work yesterday, I gave in. I went to Walgreens and picked up MORE OTC meds and, gulp…EYE DROPS! Considering you all know about my eyeball phobia, this drop purchase was a desperate attempt to make me stop looking like I was crying over having no power. I sanitized everything in sight and hoped for the best.

Last night Mark and I drove out to Amherst (after the driving ban was lifted…) so I could go to the after hours doctor. (I am in between PCP’s right now, and don’t have my new doctor on my insurance card available until Nov!) And now, $40 later with a script in hand, I dare say (knock on wood) that after just two mighty strong pills I am feeling BETTER. Only 6 weeks later…knocking on wood as I type.

Driving up Sheridan Drive and down Niagara Falls Boulevard was quite shocking…street lights out EVERYWHERE, 4 days after the storm!!! And so many freaking stupid drivers on the road. Shocking that there aren’t more accidents! Coming back, it was sooo dark and eerie. Until reaching Buffalo, where at least most of Elmwood was lit.

3. Power on, as of last night. Although really? The biggest pain over this entire weekend was just having a cold dark house at 7 ish with a freaking miserable nose problem.

Electronics?

The computer, yeah, this is my main connection to life. I only found myself desperate to spread important information with others, and pictures, which I was able to do once I came to work on Monday.

Radio? Well…Friday morning was hard without having a radio inside. Turns out we have exactly 6 D batteries and we needed 8! AND the backup battery in the alarm clock, well the battery was good but the backup not so much. I went out to the truck several times throughout the weekend and listened to…gasp…WBEN for talktalktalk and constant updated information. BUT besides those moments? We stayed in the house quietly. It wasn’t too bad actually! Just a bit chilly. Colder in the house than outside.

Stove? Gas stove. Check. Hot water. Check. Kleenex. Check. Blankets. Check.

Living in the City? No need to boil water. No need to get in the car to drive.

Really? Mark and I kind of looked at it as an escape, a snow weekend. Living in the City we easily walked around the neighborhood to see what stores were open. The section of Elmwood with Pano’s and Cole’s had power and were opened for business. And Sunday night, Cafe Aroma was up and running too…our very own warming station. Well, ours and a whole lotta other chilly neighbors!

So what did we do all weekend?

Actually, is it weird to say that we were kinda excited by the simplicity of it all? I can read and write and organize the artsy/crafty boxes in the house and hang with the cats and drink lots of warm tea! (At least until 7 pm!) And Mark can read and ink his comics and paint and draw and organize the studio. We can take walks around the neighborhood to make sure everything is ok, and eat warm meals on Elmwood and drink hot coffee…and light candles and play board games at night and cuddle and stuff and all would be JUST fine. And we knew people with power…so we could spend time there, if we could get there. Our truck needed to be looked at on Friday, we aren’t really driving it on major highways so that was a factor…as well as me being sick! My friends with power had wee little ones or were expecting wee little ones and the last thing I wanted to do was sneeze on them 200 times!

(Are we still too *new* and sappy? Or is this a normal response?)

Every time I remotely came close to complaining, I remembered so many other people are worse off…for example listening to WBEN I heard caller after caller after caller whine and complain and one person actually came on and was wondering about his CABLE!!! And whether Time Warner was going to prorate the cost since they are GASP! WITHOUT CABLE FOR TWO DAYS! I mean come on! Really? The person on-air got off the phone with the caller and then reminded people that well, there are people in the community who depend on electric wheelchairs to get around, IMAGINE BEING THAT PERSON. I am actually quite glad I did NOT have the radio on in the house I would have just been pissed off at the petty callers all weekend.

So first on the agenda…

The closet that I meant to clean out was first priority since we now had boots and gloves and coats to put away. Of course the closet was also the place where we just stashed everything we didn’t want to deal with when we moved a few months ago…so this was an afternoon project. All the floors were carefully swept and the house was clean clean clean!

Mark ventured into his studio and sorted through his boxes of action figures…many of them are now displayed in perfect action figure formation in his studio and our back hallway!

And MAYBE in our bedroom we have a Spiderman hanging…but only because of my dreams. (Will blog this story later…)

I read the book “How to Be Alone”

And then, darkness fell upon the land. Bedtime at 8 pm! We woke up Saturday 14 hours later, utterly refreshed.

Saturday morning we walked over to Pano’s for breakfast. Man oh MAN! What an adventure. No, not the walk…but listening to the conversations while waiting for a table!

One group of men talked about how they were bored looking at the candles on Friday night so they drove up to the casino and won money! They came back home, were bored again…and drove back up later that night! (WHAT PART OF UNNECESSARY DRIVING AND STATE OF EMERGENCY DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?)

The lady on my right was just plain MISERABLE that she didn’t wash her hair! Oh yes, she had hot water…she just couldn’t blow dry it! My GOD she was NEVER seen in PUBLIC wearing a BASEBALL cap before! (THE HORROR!) She made an appointment with the salon across the street for a wash and style. Because you know, 24 hours after a major storm the most important thing is looking good.

The same lady, God bless her little heart…(can you say blog fodder?) was then trying to decide what to have for breakfast. She mentioned a fantastic spinach and mushroom omelet that she one had there, but…GASP! She remembered the recent SPINACH situation. Direct quote here, and I am 99.9% certain that she wasn’t intending to be ironic.

“First no spinach, now, no power.”

Good GOD will the tragedy never end!

Needless to say our breakfast was a hoot…we then walked up the street and ran into my co-worker and her hubby who also did not have power. They played “save the wine” the previous night while we played “save the beer and ice cream”

A trip to Target to secure batteries was attempted. Of course none were to be found, everything gone. Which in retrospect, was a good thing. I am telling you some of the callers on WBEN were just crazy. One woman called in, needing mice for her reptiles since Petsmart was closed. I heard stories about how people were using their generator to watch movies…”The Perfect Storm” no less! And thankfully, while listening to the Closings/Openings I actually heard the announcement that “OTB was open for business!” OFF TRACK BETTING? Oy vey, is this radio news worthy? I can totally understand reporting that the Bishop has excused the Sunday Mass Obligation for Catholics without power. I mean, really, who needs more guilt while throwing away freezers full of food on a Saturday night…Thank God the Catholics were excused! (Common sense? Or am I off here…I mean for the Catholics who couldn’t attend Mass because a tree fell through their car window, wouldn’t God just forgive them as soon as they made it to confession?)

No radio, DEFINITELY a good thing. I would wait for the Sunday paper.

The checkout woman at Target scared me a little bit, perhaps Mark and I looked too much like a lovey couple, but for some reason she says to us “I bet that 9 months from now, a whole bunch of babies will be born in Buffalo!” This scared me a little, and upon saying a quick prayer, I stayed an arms length away from Mark for the next, oh, hour at least.

Back at Casa de Jen and Mark without power…we again took the afternoon to play/read. And come night fall, candles were lit and Scrabble was brought out. Mark won. Bastard.

An early bedtime once again…which led to No Power Sunday!

Brrrr! I stayed under the covers most of the morning and I read “Durable Goods” while Mark played with his comic book collection.

We headed to Cole’s for a VERY LONG DINNER where while charging my cell phone and chomping on Sicilian Wings and a Clancy sandwich, I found out that the BILLS lost…and then warmed ourselves at the Aroma for the rest of the night. The Aroma was a hot bed of activity! I met up with a girl from High School there who I had not seen in quite a while. Mark invited new best friend to come out with us…and we ran into several other people we knew as well! Another co-worker and her fiance sat with us for a while and we told funny storm stories.

For example…all those people in the City who DO have power? Do they REALLY need to have every single orange Halloween light on too? Is the giant inflatable glowing pumpkin in your front yard necessary while the elderly neighbor on the corner is using a generator to stay warm? Just a little sarcasm, I am sure the festive Buffalonians didn’t think about how it looked to the 2/3rds of us WITHOUT POWER. Perhaps if I warmed my little cold hands on their front lawn they might-might turn out some of those lights, just for a few days at least.

So…with that said, Sunday night ended, cold and dark just as it began. And at least on Monday, we went to work where we could once again connect with the world around us, without wearing stocking caps and gloves.

And that’s my story.

Tonight, I tackle the month long piles of laundry, Gulp. I was going to do that on Thursday night and just didn’t get a chance…I would go grocery shopping to get us some refrigerated goods, however seeing that we are dumping $400 into the truck today to get fixed, I might wait until payday on Friday.

Life is ok…things could be worse. I could be waiting for my cable to come back on, oh wait, I don’t have cable.

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