snow daze

I'm sharing 20 memories in honor of living in my house for 20 years. This is #6.

While there have been many snow storms in the 20 years I've lived at Chez Pez, January 2014 was extra memorable. While snow had been predicted, the ice was what brought the city to a halt. Power lines and trees snapped under the weight. 

It was so icy that I had to use Uncle Cletus's potato fork as a walking stick. 

Luckily my side of the street only lost power for about eight hours - not enough time to freeze any pipes or do any serious damage. Unfortunately for the other side of the street didn't have any electricity for two days. 

The temperature was below zero and I felt terrible for the folks on the west side. I let everyone know that my house was open for cell phone charging, hand warming, coffee drinking, bathroom using, and even sleeping. 

That first day I heard a huge crash. A tree had fallen my neighbor to the north's house and sheared off the power box to this house. 

As you can imagine, he was gobsmacked and discombobulated. I called the power company for him and they said that the box would need to be repaired before they could come out and with whole chunks of the city out of electricity fixing one household was way down on their priority list. 

I talked him though calling his insurance agent who called a repair man to fix the box - in a day or two. 

I gathered all of my extension cords, plugged them in to a basement outlet, snaked them through the dryer outlet and stretched them to the neighbor's house in an effort to keep his pipes from freezing. 

I invited the neighbor...I was fairly confident that his first name was Al, but had no idea of his last....to sleep on my sofa. He doesn't have any immediate family and his closest relatives lived out of state. 

He was a thoughtful guest, but I think he was a little bored. I don't have a television in the living room and I wasn't comfortable inviting him to watch a show in my bedroom. He didn't seem to be a reader and we weren't coming up with any conversation topics that seemed to take. 

On the second night I introduced him to Netflix on my laptop. He was thrilled to watch Westerns and I could retreat to my room with out feeling too guilty. 

On the fifth day, finally, Al got his power restored. 

I'm still not sure of his last name.....