Brief reprieve

Monday, 2:59 pm

By Kate

Dec

04

2006

Today I’m sort of wandering around the house wondering how it all happened so quickly—and without having to rip my fingernails out to force me to do it.

JustMe came over on Saturday and told me she had exactly 6 hours to spend. We were going to do deep cleaning and rearrange all the furniture I’ve been crabbing about for the past couple of months. And by the end of that 6 hours, we’d packed up about 12 boxes of books and shoved them into the attic, tossed out a ton of junk, hauled furniture around, and even vacuumed places that haven’t seen the light of day in ages.

Yesterday she came back over and we carried on. More deep cleaning and polishing and hauling furniture around. We pushed/pulled one love seat up the stairs, completely rearranged my bedroom and the living room. The television is even polished and gleaming. And, suddenly, my rooms look a whole lot larger. This woman has an eye for decorating and knows how to maximize space. And I have to say, she is the most organized cleaner I have ever known. There is an art to it and she has it nailed.

Today is a reprieve. I’m still wandering around wondering how we managed to do so much in two days. But there is still plenty left to do. That involves clearing out the lad’s room where more stuff is piled high. Some will be packed in boxes for the attic and the rest will go. And then the paint brushes come out. And the carpet cleaning machine.

On top of it all, she fed me a delicious roast beef dinner at her table last evening. I didn’t realize I was that hungry.

J is a treasure!

When I came back home, I sat myself down in my newly rearranged living room and flicked on the the television. About halfway through the show, the lights flickered and the power went out. Well, nuts. Only half the street was affected and, unfortunately, my house was on that half.

An hour later, I blew the candles out and decided to just go to bed. Those responsible would surely have the power back on in a little while, but there was no sense in waiting around for it to happen. I woke briefly, around 2:00, and the power was still out.

At 5:15 this morning, I woke up and my room was illuminated by yellow flashing lights. I peered out the window and saw several utility trucks out there. It was snowing out, too. I don’t know exactly what they were doing, but utility workers were all crowded around something about three doors up the street. Our neighborhood has buried power lines and I think one of the transformers is just about where they were all crowded around. I think there was a large bright flash just about the time the power went off.

I also noticed that it was cold in the house and I dived back under the blankets.

A couple of seconds later I found a frozen kitty burrowing under my blankets. And then I heard a terrible moaning coming from downstairs. Terry! I grabbed by battery powered lantern and a down-filled throw blanket and clattered down the stairs. Terry was shivering like a leaf. I wrapped her up in the down blanket and gave her a rawhide chew to amuse her while she warmed up. And then galloped back up to my blankets because I was not in any mood to haul wood into the house so I could start a fire in the stove.

The power finally came back on a little after 7:00 and I noticed a number of neighbor cars were still in their driveways. There were, clearly, a lot of alarm clocks that didn’t go off this morning. And no coffee pots, electric razors or hair dryers, either.

When the power came back on, the thermometer in the house registered a brisk 54 degrees and the television came back on with such a blast that it launched me right out of my toasty blankets.

So that mystery has been solved as well. When the power goes off, the television resets to default mode and the speakers automatically turn back on. At full volume. That got my blood racing pretty quickly.

Since then I have rectified the empty wood rack situation. The house has warmed back up, everyone appears content, and I’m tired, but I am so in love with my house today.