Life... now what?

I had dinner and watched Enterprise at Richard's last night. As I got home, I realized it was probably a good thing that I did. At some point in the evening all of the power went out on my block and several other blocks up the street. I still haven't been able to figure out what time the lights went out, but from the temperature of the refrigerator, I'm thinking I would have missed a decent sized chunk of the show.

So, I made it through the front gate and stopped at the foot of the stairs leading up to my apartment. Those of you who've been there know how dark and dreary that stairway can be normally. Let me tell you, that's nothing compared to the pitch black void I was now facing. Fortunately, there were no monsters or worse hiding in the blackness and I fumbled with the keys only a moment before opening the door and stepping in to my likewise pitch black apartment.

I stumbled across the living room to the entertainment center where I have a few candles and a lighter. Couldn't find the lighter. Stumbled to the bedroom for my second lighter which should have been on the nightstand or the corner shelf. It wasn't. Okay, next option, the MagLite in the kitchen. Miraculously, it was where it was supposed to be. Of course, the batteries were dead.

My next brilliant idea was to use the light on my cell phone to search the floor around the entertainment center for the missing lighter. No luck. Tried the same thing in the bedroom with the same results. Then I remembered where I could find working batteries that would fit the flashlight. Whith images of a particular scene from the movie Parenthood filling my head, I retrieved the batteries, relocated the flashlight, and voila, there was light. I then found missing lighter #1 (on the floor near the entertainment center). I lit a few candles, basked in the lovely glow for a moment, then remembered that all I wanted to do when I got home was to crawl into bed and go to sleep. So I set my travel alarm clock, blew out the freshly lit candles, and went to bed.

I think I just failed Emergency Preparedness 101.

There's this character at work, Wilson. Wilson is a brown paper bag with a blue handprint face and hair made from shredding the top of the bag... like Wilson from Castaway only a bag instead of a volleyball. Wilson belongs to Dave and Nina. He's been living at Dave's desk for a while, but Dave thought he needed to come stay with Nina for a while. So now, he's sitting on the wall between mine and Nina's cubicles. Looking at me. I can see him in my peripheral vision, but just barely. Since I don't have a full view, my brain is filling in the blanks and telling me what I'm seeing.

Something got lost in the translation and I keep thinking I'm seeing Ru Paul.

I'm developing a theory regarding the so called Energy Crisis here in CA. I don't think there's an energy shortage at all. I believe that the Soft Drink Moguls have joined forces with the Power People to hold back our energy until we buy more sodas.

The evidence: My office is hot. It has been uncomfortably hot for weeks now. The reason of course being the need to conserve energy. The effect this has on me and my coworkers is to create unusual thirst levels. Therefore, we make increased trips to the vending machine and the soda fountain in the lunch room.

The soda people make a huge profit, share some of it with the energy people to keep the crisis going, and the rest of us just plug along blindly in our hot offices, drinking lots of fluids to fight off the temperature induced nausea.