In the Dark

Last night, I was settling in to watch "More to Love" (a guilty pleasure; I wouldn't even set the DVR to record it) when the power went out.

It was around 8:30 on a beautiful evening, warm and pleasant. Most of our power failures are weather-related, but that wasn't the case here. I looked out the window, and all the houses on my street were out. I decided to go out and walk around a little, to see if I could figure out how widespread the power failure was. Even though I tried to see where my cat Peaches was before I opened the door, he managed to bolt out. What can I say? It was dark. He immediately dashed across the street. My son started to chase him, but soon gave it up. Stupid cat.

The sky was still glowing with light pollution. The clouds appeared illuminated. But there were no lights in the houses for as far as I could see. A lot of the neighbors came out into the street to see what was going on. I think it's funny; I hardly know my neighbors, I only see them when something like this happens. And, of course, it was dark, so I couldn't see them very well even then.

Back inside, I dug out some candles and my cheap glass candlesticks, and my son and I illuminated the house with candlelight. It wasn't quite enough to read by, but it was pleasant. My son commented that he had wondered about how people in the past, before electricity, could really see after dark; he didn't think candles would provide enough light. But they did.

Eventually Peaches came home. I was relieved. He was clearly pleased with himself, to pull one over on us like that. Stupid cat, to cause us unnecessary worry.

I've lived in this house for six years, and I don't remember any power failure lasting longer than half an hour. This one lasted two and a half hours. I went to bed about an hour and a half into it. I had to brush my teeth by candlelight. I woke up again when the lights came back on (and not just because my son cheered).

So it wasn't until this morning that I found out how "More to Love" had come out. Really, I just watched it for the fashions! But Luke (the bachelor, who resembles my younger son and at 26 is really too young to be getting married) asked Tali, the beautiful Israeli girl and my favorite among the finalists, to marry him. I wonder how it'll all turn out. Will they really get married? Or will it be like every other Bachelor/ Bachelorette show ever recorded? (Except the first Bachelorette, I guess; they got married, and they're still married. I never really watched any of them.) Will anybody ever do an article on where the contestants bought their beautiful clothing? I've been looking for a new sundress all summer, and there were several I would gladly buy as long as they weren't too expensive.