Woke up thinking it was the middle of the night. Dry mouth, headache. Lately, the moon has woken me up often. Yesterday morning, it was about 3...but looking at the clock, it was almost 5:30, an acceptable time to get up.
We had survived a difficult day yesterday. I worked several hours in the morning--I couldn't seem to leave as early as I had intended--and then went back 5-9. We made no money yesterday. Three people were scheduled. One did not like the bottom line on his return. He was getting a much smaller refund than last year and refused to sign (or pay). One will come back, hopefully. One was a no-show, who may reschedule. We were definitely over-staffed.
I got home about 2:30 or so. The garage door was open. "That's funny," I thought. "Maybe Ray thought he closed it, but the remote didn't work and he didn't notice." I pushed the button, but nothing happened. I continued making the chili I had started that morning, sauteing the onion and garlic I had chopped, adding a hot pepper left in my fridge from when the girls were home at Christmas time, now seeming so long ago, but less than a month.
My Dad pulled in, ready to finalize our seed order. We usually have seeds in hand by now, but my schedule has been busy and the weather has been COLD. I mentioned the garage door, which he could see was not closed, and he went downstairs to check the circuit breakers. He was able to turn that one back on, but he came back up puzzled. "There were a lot of breakers tripped," he said. "And some of them won't reset." I noticed the clocks were wrong, a sign of a power outage. It was a clear but windy day, so no lightning, but maybe some power line down somewhere. That wouldn't trip the breakers though. One of them "popped" at him, making us both nervous. I went down and unplugged the vacuum cleaner. All the lights on the modem and router were off and the surge protector didn't seem to work any more, which meant no internet for the foreseeable future.
I was making chili and talking to my Dad, trying to order seeds on my phone (which still had internet access, of course). There was a high-pitched whine coming from somewhere. My phone rang. It was the State Farm agent, returning my call. I have had a time with a claim for an accident in October. "I can't talk," I told her. "There's a smell of burning in my house." "Call me back," she said. The surge protector in the study was the source of the annoying and worrisome sound (and smell). I turned it off and felt better.
When I went upstairs to check my computer, of course there was no internet, but the auxiliary things plugged into the surge protector didn't work (my external keyboard, for instance). That surge protector was dead, too. Pretty strange--what would flip all the circuit breakers and knock out three surge protectors?
I had started some cookies while I was on one of the many phone calls. They were not quite right, too much sugar, not enough flour...and I had to leave. My Dad had gone, somewhat satisfied about the seed order, which I had ended up placing by phone. I ate two small bowls of chili--it was good, not spicy at all, with sour cream! I took the cookies I had baked out of the oven, but couldn't get them off the pans--sticky and not holding together well.
I called Ray to fill him in on the electrical mystery. "I think you should call an electrician," I told him. "Don't try to do anything yourself. I don't want a dead husband or a burned-down house!" He was arriving as I was leaving. I was 5 minutes late, not a good example for the people in my office.
It was a quiet evening. I called about 50 prior clients to try to get them scheduled. The other person in the office was M., a quiet and intelligent young man. I'm fond of him, but his English is very difficult to understand. I made calls for a couple hours, then let him make some. Needless to say, he was less effective. Some people hung up on him. He said he felt like he was working in a call center, which amused him. I scheduled a few appointments, but it did not seem practical to have the office open. It was bitter cold and windy out, and the parking lot was empty. We started the closing process, bringing in the signs, rinsing the coffee pots, etc. We left about 10 minutes early. I doubt anyone called or came by then.
Meanwhile, Ray had called a neighbor, B., and gotten information from him. There was an electrical surge from the power company, about 300 volts, in the late morning. One neighbor had called an electrician and been charged $75 to be told it was a power company issue. I think they will reimburse us for our surge protectors. I'm glad we had them!
