Back on the Grid

Thank goodness for modern conveniences like running water, hot water, indoor plumbing, electricity and insulation. I take all of these things for granted until one day I am "deprived" of one of them. A heat wave has marked much of the state this week. I am thankful that we didn't have to deal with the 110+ temps that our southern California friends had to put up with. We have hit 100+ though. Recently Josh and I were the recipients of a portable AC unit compliments of our next door neighbor Paul who got a new unit and wasn't using the old one. We have enjoyed being able to sleep in relative coolness thanks to our new AC unit, it cools our room quite nicely. You can imagine how puzzled we were to wake up in stifling heat on Tuesday night. What in the world? was my comment. Josh noted his alarm clock wasn't working. Power outage right? Well...sort of. After a couple minutes noting all the things in our room that weren't working (ceiling fan, alarm clock, etc.) Josh looked out the window and discovered that our neighbor's porch light was on so it was not a broad power outage. He checked our circuit breaker downstairs and discovered that we had power downstairs but no circuit was tripped and he couldn't find any evident reason for our outage. While Josh was scoping out things downstairs I tried desperately to get back to sleep but was distracted by Lola's huffing and puffing from inside her crate, she was roasting I'm sure, poor thing. Josh returned and was able to fall back asleep but not me. I retreated to the somewhat cooler downstairs to make an appointment with PG&E and try to unwind. After a couple episodes of throwndown with Bobby Flay and Golden Girls I decided that 3:30 am was a good time to try and go to sleep. Needless to say, neither of us slept well that night. Wednesday and Thursday brought no answers and so we put a call in to our friend from church who is an electrician. I am SO HAPPY to report that Nick our electrician friend came through today. Turns out one of our outlets in the spare room was badly wired and had fused together and shorted out everything upstairs. I am so thankful for electricity!