Who's a freeze baby?

Okay, so I wasn't going to post about the weather because you could just turn on the news and hear about it.

 

 

Polar vortex, smowmageddon, blah....blah...blah...

 

Well, then I woke up at 4am on Tuesday morning and I had no power. I'm not even sure why I woke up, but I looked over at the nightstand clock with the red lighted numbers and it was off. And the funny thing is, I haven't even plugged in for at least a month but for some reason, I decided to plug it in on Monday before I went to bed.

 

I thought maybe the plug had become loose so I turned on the lamp to check.

 

Nuthin'.

 

Oh shit, no power.

 

I pulled back the covers and it felt colder than usual so I grabbed my phone, turned it on to light my way and stepped out into the hallway to check the thermostat. It was 65 which wasn't too bad since I turn it down to 70 when I go to bed anyway. I honestly wasn't too concerned because I was sure it would be back on soon. I guess I must have had a temporary lapse of memory and forgot about the 18 hour power outage back in October.

 

I fell asleep for a little while and woke up to my neighbor texting me. "We have no power." Way ahead of ya, buddy.

 

One hour turned into two as I watched the temperature continue to fall. I texted my dog walking clients that I couldn't get my car out of my garage because of the power outage and I wasn't sure if it would be back on in time but that I would keep them posted. Honestly, I was hoping that it wouldn't be back on because with the wind chill, the temperature was -35 degrees.

 

A temperature that low is a danger to both us and our pets but if they wanted their dog walked, I would walk them to the front tree and back.

 

The night before I had gotten an automated call from the city that I live in stating that the community center would be open as a "warming center" the next day but I disregarded it, thinking I wouldn't be needing it. Whenever I hear the term "warming center", I think to myself, "Those are open in the inner city for homeless people." Then the temperature in the house dropped to 42 degrees and I could literally see my breath.

 

Okay, maybe we should head to the warming center.

 

I called the community center from my almost dead cell phone and they informed me that they had no heat so I called the next city over. They said they were open but when I asked if I could bring my dogs, they said they discouraged it but that I could bring them if they were in kennels. Yeah, that wasn't going to happen so I called my neighbor to see if he wanted to go to the community center to charge our phones. The funny thing is, we had both just gotten portable phone chargers for occasions just like this but both out chargers were dead. Duh.

 

I felt terrible leaving my babies home alone but I knew that I wasn't going to be gone long and I bundled them all up before I left. Even Vinny let me put a sweater around him!

We were thrilled to find that the power was on when we came back home but it was a loooong 12 hours.

Note to self: Buy a generator!