Power Struggles

We’ve been fighting with the power levels in our house for about two weeks now.

No wait, that makes it sound like Anny and I have fought over who gets to do what. That’s not right. (we all know that Anny has the power!)

We have been fighting with ACTUAL power…you know, electricity…. for about two weeks now.

Let’s start with fun things earlier this spring:
Our local water utility has been going around our town and replacing both the water and sewer lines in the streets. Very good thing for the long term use of the system. Very bad thing in the time it is taking them to get the work done.

They have managed to shake electrical connections loose in almost all of our circuit breakers, and apparently on the connection from the pole to our home. Last night they came out and fixed the connection at the pole. When I got home this afternoon to meet with the satellite repairman, the lights continued to flicker.

With the loss of reliable power we don’t have many of our creature comforts. The two biggest are the television and the internet. (I’ve hijacked someone else’s wireless connection to post this!)

I’m the first to admit that I “watch” too much TV. I don’t know that I really do, but it is on often enough that it seems that way. I’ll leave the TV on while I do many things. Actually, almost anything that is inside the house. You could say that I use it to tell time, or at least time elapsed. (“That project only took one episode of Trading Spaces to get through.”)

It’s really playing games with our heads because the power is neither on nor off. The power is either low, at normal, or surging the daylights our of our appliances and such. I would almost rather have the power out completely, so that I didn’t get the notion that it’s okay to work in the workshop. No, it’s really not safe to work in the light-dark-dark-light-BRIGHT-dark of our surging power.

So now I sit here waiting to yell at the power company over the phone when they return my call. I think I hear the phone ringing now……