You don't expect that your first night in the house you just got the deed for would maybe, no longer be there. I was a little worried about
that. Our first night in the house was in a great storm!
Why, oh why, must we have this hurricane-tornadolike weather? The lights were blinking as the husband was using the electric pump to blow up our mattress -- yes, we were "camping out" in the house -- and I worried the lights flickering meant we were stressing out the circuits.
We went out the front door and he said "Auntie Em!" It looked like a tornado might be close by, the branches of our small trees out front were literally being 'wrenched' back and forth. I felt sorry for the trees. I would feel even sorrier if something fell on the house we just bought.
But the lights and everything electric had gone out now. This, our first night in the house! There was hardly anything in the house as we still had flooring to be put in and we were there, specifically, to take adavanage of the great electricity from the heat pump that was cooling ALL the rooms, something our rented house did not have. And all of a sudden, poof, it was gone, no electric, no escape from the high 90s outside. Or was it maybe a tiny bit lower?
It probably was not that low outside, temperaturewise, as this was a weird storm. Dark and gloomy clouds, very high winds and no rain, to speak of. The newspaper gave it a Spanish name, techerecho, or something like that! It is mostly a wind storm, and at the end of our block it caused a mature maple to almost split in two, and bring down a wire to the home in back of it (luckily, not ours). Even if we do have insurance, I would like the house to stay in one piece!
By this time it was getting "really dark" in and out of the house,so Fran ran across to the neighbors and asked for a flashlight. The wind was still whipping things around and I wasn't brave enought to go out there with him. He brought back some of those white 'storm' candles and a lighter, dumped our almonds into some aluminum foil, and created a holder for the candles by lighting them and dripping the melted wax into the bottom of the tin. Then he set them in it and there they stood! Not bad for a former boy scout!
You never think about hurricanelike weather this far inland in June. We did get the air mattress inflated before the lights went out, and opened our "one" window with a screen so we could get some breeze from outside. But at 11 pm or so a neighbor must have been bored in the dark and started playing the drums, in a neighborhood with no electricity at all! It was difficult to get to sleep.
I hear people in the bigger cities like Roanoke still may not have their power -- ours came back on in the middle of the night. I went to bed early but the drummer and cars driving by and hitting the house with headlights were no help!
Our second night was better. I guess it would have to be.
