Powerless

“Even when I am afraid or unsure, I choose to move in the direction of my goal. Whenever I fall, I stand up, brush myself off, and keep moving.”

Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Upon entering my house yesterday after my bus run I was surprised to find that we had no power.

In the aftermath of Tuesday's tropical storm,there were power outages all over our area. Other than a downed tree taking out a section of our fence, we had escaped the storm mostly unscathed.

That is why it seemed odd that a full 24 hours after the storm we now found ourselves in the dark.

Bottom line was there wasn't much we could do about it.

100s of thousands homes were without electricity.

I was fairly certain that PSE&G was not about to drop what they were doing to help me out.

It became apparent rather quickly that we would just have to hunker down and ride it out until power was restored.

Sitting alone in my family room, I couldn't help but to think about the state of things,particularly in my life.

Earlier that day,my place of employment all but raised the white flag to this whole Covid thing.

Of the couple of dozen of us still partially employed,25% were let go. Further cuts were coming reducing hours from 50% down another 25%.

So here I sat. A little depressed,hot,no power,quarantined,alone.

My cell phone was dying so I began limiting my calls.

Eventually Max and Susan both came home.

After feeding the animals I sent them both out to grab some dinner.

Being on program, it just doesn't make sense for me to eat out, besides the fact that it was 90 degrees and sitting outside just did not seem appealing to me.

As the evening wore on, it became apparently clear that I was at risk of losing the contents of our refrigerator and freezer.

I needed an action plan.

I grabbed a crock pot and started rummaging through the fridge. If it seemed like it might taste good,I threw it into the pot. My plan was to take this hodgepodge to my daughter's house,plug the crockpot in on low and just let it stew overnight.

Nothing would go to waste and there would be a hot meal for the next evening.

On the way to Sara's house,we pass 2 very upscale restaurants.Bothe were fairly packed with many patrons having a late night dinner.

These are restaurants where you "dine" not just eat.

The whole thing seemed a little Kafkaesque to me.

Here I was,schwitzing from the heat, running in the middle of the night to plug in a crockpot to try and salvage as much from the meager offerings my refrigerator had to offer,knowing that the financial chaos caused by this pandemic was worsening, and there on the side of the road, the "elite" were dining.

All the while knowing that I would be returning to a house with no electricity which would mean no showering in the morning. Not even a cup of coffee.

It felt a bit like the scene from Titanic of the boat sinking and a string quartet playing on deck.

4:15 this morning the power was back on here.

Life has returned to normal,or as normal as it has been lately.

The budget cuts? well they are still to be dealt with.

In the meantime, many of the homes I deliver to are still without electricity and will be for days.

They are all seniors who need help.

Time for a new action plan.

So that's what's next on my agenda!

See.I guess I am not powerless at all!