rain, trees, power
Nov. 7th, 2002 11:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timepiececlockIt's hellaciously stormy tonight in the SF Bay Area, after near constant rain all day.
I was driving back from school this afternoon when the DJ on my radio station must've tapped into his usually un-funny sense of humor to find something acutally rather amusing-- they started playing 'November Rain' by Guns N' Roses.
Then later, the real fun began.
At about 7:05, the power went out. Sometime between 7:15 and 7:20, the wind split a tree three houses down from us, which fell into the intersection and blocked one street entrance.
Within minutes of that, plus or minus, the wind split ANOTHER, entirely separate tree about 100 feet away, across my street. It fell into a parking-circle-drive-thingy though, and not an intersection, so no one seemed to care about that one. I felt bad for it, what with the half-tree in the street getting all the attention, all the flares and the cop cars and the fire engines-- and no one even noticing the bigger, taller tree that was ALSO broken just down the way. I guess blocking traffic is still the sure-fire way to get attention in America, even for wounded trees.
We lit lots of candles, which was fun-- epsecially since I was the only one with the flashlight, the only one with dry matches, and the only one with easily accessible candles. Someimes it's nice being the one who's prepared. "Why do you have matches? Taking up smoking?" my dad had aked me a mere three days ago, referring to the cheap little hotel-pack of matches I had in my backpack? I'd said "No... just, because. You know." And hey, I was right! Our regular matches were outside getting wet, and my wittle pack of cheap ones saved us until we could find MY flashlight-- which my dad did promptly confiscate for his own use. Which, wasn't bad, because he had things like 'generators'.
My dad hooked up a generator, and we ate split pea soup my mom had made last night, which luckily had been already warmed up before the storm took out our power. Than was DAMN FINE split pea soup. LOTS of ham, and softly mushed carrots... yeah it was kind of a gross green color, but hey-- what taste.
It was two hours later and we'd finally gotten situated after everyone arriving, eating, walking out into the storm to look at the traffic-obstructing trees, and finding the scrabble board, when the lights came back on.
We decided to play scrabble anyway. What a good decision. It lasted 2 1/2 hours, but it was worth it--- I won. I never win against my parents... my mom ALWAYS beats me and my dad is no slouch either. But this time I totally kicked their asses. I used the word "junk" in a strategic place, and got 66 points. Hah. Thank the board game deities for red triple word score boxes! This was a first. I mean, I win at other games-- but never at scrabble. And I won by a nice margin, too. All in all, an entertaining game, if a little slow.
I was driving back from school this afternoon when the DJ on my radio station must've tapped into his usually un-funny sense of humor to find something acutally rather amusing-- they started playing 'November Rain' by Guns N' Roses.
Then later, the real fun began.
At about 7:05, the power went out. Sometime between 7:15 and 7:20, the wind split a tree three houses down from us, which fell into the intersection and blocked one street entrance.
Within minutes of that, plus or minus, the wind split ANOTHER, entirely separate tree about 100 feet away, across my street. It fell into a parking-circle-drive-thingy though, and not an intersection, so no one seemed to care about that one. I felt bad for it, what with the half-tree in the street getting all the attention, all the flares and the cop cars and the fire engines-- and no one even noticing the bigger, taller tree that was ALSO broken just down the way. I guess blocking traffic is still the sure-fire way to get attention in America, even for wounded trees.
We lit lots of candles, which was fun-- epsecially since I was the only one with the flashlight, the only one with dry matches, and the only one with easily accessible candles. Someimes it's nice being the one who's prepared. "Why do you have matches? Taking up smoking?" my dad had aked me a mere three days ago, referring to the cheap little hotel-pack of matches I had in my backpack? I'd said "No... just, because. You know." And hey, I was right! Our regular matches were outside getting wet, and my wittle pack of cheap ones saved us until we could find MY flashlight-- which my dad did promptly confiscate for his own use. Which, wasn't bad, because he had things like 'generators'.
My dad hooked up a generator, and we ate split pea soup my mom had made last night, which luckily had been already warmed up before the storm took out our power. Than was DAMN FINE split pea soup. LOTS of ham, and softly mushed carrots... yeah it was kind of a gross green color, but hey-- what taste.
It was two hours later and we'd finally gotten situated after everyone arriving, eating, walking out into the storm to look at the traffic-obstructing trees, and finding the scrabble board, when the lights came back on.
We decided to play scrabble anyway. What a good decision. It lasted 2 1/2 hours, but it was worth it--- I won. I never win against my parents... my mom ALWAYS beats me and my dad is no slouch either. But this time I totally kicked their asses. I used the word "junk" in a strategic place, and got 66 points. Hah. Thank the board game deities for red triple word score boxes! This was a first. I mean, I win at other games-- but never at scrabble. And I won by a nice margin, too. All in all, an entertaining game, if a little slow.
