Friday, Oct. 28: The storm is over

4 AM: I quietly sign-out and drive home in the dark. The village is so quiet and the street lights are reassuring. It isn't as cold as I anticipated. It was predicted to be in the twenties overnight. Perhaps I am now acclimated. I go by house after house that has power and drive around the curve at Roger Shafer's B&B and I see my floodlight! I can't believe it! Perhaps it will go out just as I drive into the garage? But then I see that the upstairs lights are still on, and my hopes have come true: I have power!

The computer battery had died while on sleep mode so I didn't know if I had unwittingly killed the machine: but it fired right up! There was a blinking light on the phone but no message (thank goodness, I didn't feel like talking to anyone). The cats acted surprised that I came home at this odd hour: they were very comfortable and in no rush to get out of bed to say good morning to me. So I left them alone. I flushed a toilet! What a pleasure! I brushed my teeth, turned on the faucets. I collected 56 pieces of e-mail (none were urgent), read the news, and played my games. I watched the news on TV but nothing was new. I also collected news and photos that I could find about the Kingdom and the storm. There were still some pop tarts in the pantry so I had those with some vitamins and bottled water. There was nothing else to eat so I planned to return to the shelter for breakfast and to say goodbye and thank the Red Cross staff. I left at 7 AM. I was so dreadfully tired that I decided to shower when I got home and before I went back to bed for the day.

I had a muffin at the shelter before I thanked them for their wonderful help. Then I went across the road to Jennie's and had eggs and sausage with my last $4. I tried to stop by to make sure I could get snow tires but Francis hadn't opened yet. Dottie wasn't at church, and the pharmacist wasn't at the pharmacy yet. So I left my prescription on the counter and went home. I e-mailed the Sunday School news to Dottie and then I went to bed after I let Buddy out. He didn't last 10 minutes! It was just too cold! So Possum and I went to bed until 11 AM. I am watching my soaps as I collect this material and type it. But people in the Bush administration are being indicted today so the soaps are being interrupted. Buddy is sleeping in his spot beside me inside the drawer. Possum is still in bed with Pansy, Zorro, Turnip, and Mouse. Matilda is very comfortable on the chair. Charlie? He is Newport. I made Amy take him with her when she was here because he is simply too agressive to be left alone with the others. I am in no rush to have him back home.

Dottie called: everyone around her has power and her barn has power but not her house. So she has a problem on her pole. If I didn't have power she was going to have me move into one of her cottages that has heat.

I have to learn how to use the wood furnace. I need to look into buying a portable propane heater. I have to get somebody to cut up the fallen hardwood. But the priorities are still the septic and the garage doors.

It is 68 degrees downstairs. Upstairs it is 72. The lock on Amy's bedroom door fell into its latch so her door is now permenantly locked from the inside. Everything is back to normal.



Technorati tags: snow+storm Vermont Northeast+Kingdom FEMA Red+Cross

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