Last night

-8:45pmish...Kids finally asleep in spite of thunderstorm. Just sitting down, thinking about watching Lobster Wars show at 9. Bang, crash, boom...out go the lights. Light a candle and expect power to return any minute as it always does here.

-9pm Decide to go online and see that the wireless connection is gone. We lose our connection when someone so much as sighs, so why am I surprised?

-9:15pm Notice lights on in other houses up and down our street but the ones right next to us are dark. Wonder about calling the power company but surely they must already know, right? Anyway, last time I needed help because of flickering power and called them, they showed up in the middle of the night, banging on my door when I was alone. Forget it.

-9:20pm Think about how to kill time without electricity since my insomnia would laugh at a bedtime before midnight. Always good books to read! Stumble around in the dark trying to find as many candles as possible since the flashlights are nowhere to be found. Spill large amount of hot wax all over my protruding belly. Good times.

This thunderstorm that took out the power did not seem to have any effect on the awful muggy heat and without A/C, the house grows steamy.

So glad the kids are sound asleep even without the drone of the white noise machine, necessary in this space for blocking out the smallest sneeze two rooms over.

-11pm Even with many candles positioned as close to the bed as possible for reading, the lighting is not ideal and the flickering is starting to bother my eyes. Not tired but maybe I can fall asleep by magic.

-11:30pm Remember where one flashlight is in the kids room. It's a toy in the shape of a lion and it roars when you turn it on but it's better than nothing. Retrieve it carefully from under Ethan's bed. Blow out the candles.

12:30 Wonder how long food in the fridge will stay edible. The house is a sauna even with windows open.

1am Keith gets home from work. He removes the flashlight from the bed and, in the process turns it on. It roars.

1:30am Ethan comes into our room crying, "It's too dark in my room!" We let him climb into bed with us out of sheer exhaustion although I cannot sleep with his thrashing and kicking.

2am I try sleeping on the couch. I try sleeping sitting up.

3am I try sleeping on my bed again.

4:30am I try sleeping on the couch. I see lights flashing around in our backyard and hear repairmen shouting to each other. "Whattaya see, Mike?" "Did you find it?".....I think it's a good sign that they are out there working. I wonder if they are tripping around on all our scattered lawn toys.

I finally fall asleep sometime after this, I think.

7:30am The boys slept in...hurray. Still no power though. 80% humidity predicted for today and food in the fridge needs to be replaced. Keith runs out and gets some milk for breakfast.

Ethan tries repeatedly to turn on lights throughout the house and asks about appliances individually...Will this one work? What about this one? He tells me he was "frighted last night" by his room being so dark.

11:30am Power comes back on!! Yippee. A good frontierswoman I would not make.