About Last Night

So, I had a complete assbag of a day at work yesterday. But the kids were at their dad's and Eric was sweet enough to make me dinner, so everything seemed to be looking up.

Until.

As we were sitting down to dinner, there was a crash. A big one. The kind of crash your front window makes when the storm window and part of the divided light window is sucked off of your house and lands in a million pieces in your front yard.

It was already dark out and damned if I was going to go out in the dark and pick giant shards of glass out of the grass while being buffeted by sixty mile an hour winds. So I duct taped some cardboard over the hole and hung a quilt over the window and called my insurance company and left a message. Surreal? yes. Tragedy? no.

So we went back to the table, ate our delicious spaghetti squash and got ready to settle in for a cozy night of TV for me and studying for midterms for Eric. Then there was a bang. The kind of bang you hear when a wind storm knocks out the electricity of several city blocks.

No lights, no TV, no internet, no heat. But you can't break us that easily. We gathered candles and camping lanterns and lit a fire in the fireplace. Eric would study by candlelight and I would watch a DVD on my laptop. Until the battery died. And it started to get really cold in the house. And every thump or bump I heard made me wonder what piece of my house was currently hurling itself across the street and into my neighbors yard.

And the power stayed off. I showered by candlelight this morning. Got dressed in the dark. And hurried out the door to the salvation of Starbucks and a heated office and the warm glow of the internet. The poor dogs are probably still huddled under the comforter, the glass is still spread across the lawn and all the kids are going to be home tonight.

And now it's snowing.