Let me light your candle

So here we are on the 4th day without power, thanks to Windstorm 2006, the worst storm in Seattle since the Inauguration Day Storm of 1993 (according to the overdramatic local news, anyway). Sadly, our gas furnace requires electricity to blow the air through the house. But on the bright side, our hot water heater is gas powered so at least we weren't both cold *and* smelly.

After spending 2 days braving it out at home with TJs awesome fire-building skills (who knew I married a former Boy Scout!), when it hit 40 degrees inside the house yesterday we knew it was time for a new plan. Plus we had burned through all of the firewood we bought, plus two boxes full that we borrowed from our kind neighbors. TJ bought a fancy propane powered heater, but we quickly discovered it would kill us by emitting carbon monoxide if we used it indoors. Apparently several people across Seattle have succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning by running generators and gas grills indoor, so now I'm paranoid about it.

So yesterday we packed up the dogs, our laptops and a few sets of clothes and spent the day at Aunt Susie's house in Shoreline, then spent the night at the lovely Hotel Vintage Park downtown. It's a great little boutique hotel that accepts dogs and has free wireless Internet. Since Aunt Susie and family were off to Tucson today they kindly offered their house to us while they were gone. (We didn't want to be in their way while they were getting ready for their road trip, so we booked the hotel for last night.)

So now we're at Aunt Susie's house for tonight. Hopefully our power will be restored tomorrow but I don't have high hopes. Something like 200,000 homes are still without power in Seattle, and I think they've fixed the transmission lines for our general area. Now we have to wait for them to fix the local distribution line, likely the one that's down on the main road down the street from us. That could be several days from now but we have our fingers crossed for tomorrow.

TJ and I are playing hooky from work because we can't leave the dogs alone long enough to get to work. I think we'll be settled in enough tomorrow to try to work remotely.

This situation sucks, but there are a lot more people worse off than us who are in public shelters or toughing it out in their houses because they don't have another place to go. So today's post is dedicated to Aunt Susie, Uncle Ray, and Norman for letting us use their heat and electricity.