Blustery Night & Power Outage

AccuHunch has been telling us for days that it would be windy yesterday and last night. They called for 70 to 90 mph gusts, with sustained winds in the 50 to 60 mph range.

We got 'em.

We watch the very large birch and spruce trees in the front yard swaying alarmingly, and wondered how many would survive the night. Fortunately, they all seem to have survived.

What didn't make it was the electrical power. We had a brief outage yesterday afternoon, just long enough to make all the electronics reboot themselves. The lights flickered all evening.

At midnight, give or take, off it went. We all staggered out of bed around 0300 hrs, with groaning and bemoaning of the lack of coffee. "Just a moment," I said.

Oh, them of little faith. I grabbed a flashlight, trotted down to the garage, grabbed the percolator, and returned to the kitchen. "But Dad, you can't light the range. It needs electricity to make a spark."

I lit the gas range with a match, just like back in the old days. Some grounds, some water, and application of high heat produced perfectly good coffee, just like back in the old days. (And the recent days of camping trips, too. Apparently she thought it only worked on a campfire.)

So I got two cups of coffee poured, for my wife and me, just as the lights came back on. I hit the power button on the electric pot, and sank back into the couch with satisfaction. "That's how your grandparents did it, kiddo."

"But there are some grounds in the coffee."

"That's how your grandparents did it, kiddo. You wanted coffee, didn't you?"

:)

The Best Part of Waking Up

or rather, the best part of staying home with guests is the liberating feeling of making that second pot of coffee.

Good conversation will flow, eventually, but folks need to shake the cobwebs of sleep/travel/jet lag/time zone changes.

This. This is the good stuff

Alaskans and ex-pats will know what I'm talking about. Freshly ground, bold, rich and aromatic ... oh my, yes.