Palisades Highlands Loses Power for Entire Evening

Power at my house cut off abruptly on Tuesday night while I was listening to tv and answering dozens of emails. I easily found my flashlight and kept on reading my computer until I realized with the modem shut off all I had access to was what was already downloaded. No outgoing communication would be possible. Phoned the power company who was unaware of the outage (and continued to provide no information to my hourly inquiries) and wandered around the house, beamed my light out the windows, listened for the neighbors. Got bored.

I finally decided to flee from Michael Lane around 8 p.m. after watching power draining from my cell phone and laptop. Released the garage door manually and performed the strongman lift. Once outdoors, I ran into neighbors and neighborhood watch officer commiserating about the outage and offering one another assistance. Phoned in to my elderly neighbor, who reported she was doing crossword puzzles by candlelight and enjoying a respite from the "real world." A midweek Shabbat, I thought. 

Made a brief tour of the neighborhood and was relieved to see utility crews at work but they told me they had no idea what was wrong. See the photo gallery.

I left to car-charge my phone and gas up the Prius. Ralphs points really do give you 10¢ off a gallon at Shell. It feels like winning a sweepstakes. Resolved to keep the tank as close to full as possible from now on.  

Bargain hunting is as good a time killer as anything so went in search of new and efficient flashlights and cheap batteries at 99¢ Only Store, even though I just bought 5 tiny led lamps at Target for $1.00 each. Did some good shopping in a short time but got there so late the place closed before I could finish my tour of all the aisles. Forgot to buy radishes.

Walgreens and Rite Aid in Santa Monica kept me entertained for another hour and I found a battery powered sleep noise machine I thought would save me from a blackout anxiety insomnia night.  

Worries premature. By the time I returned, power had been restored. I found half my missed sitcoms already available on Hulu and expect to find the rest by next week. (Tuesday's a big comedy night on the networks).  Will have to keep a lookout for a rerun of PBS's The Abolitionists Part 1.