62. February 1st, 2011 Picture.

I was sitting in my bedroom, minding my own business, listening to the blizzard wind howl outside my window while watching TV when suddenly my power went out.  Do not panic, do not panic.  It will come right back on, I promise.  Maybe I blew a fuse, quick, yell to your roommates, okay no, the whole house is dark.  I rushed to the window, to see if anyone on my block had power, and saw the pitch black darkness broken by a few shaky beams of light from flashlights.  I knew I was in for it.  I don't own a flashlight, and my roommates don't either [we learned this the hard way].  Just call me woefully unprepared for natural disasters.

Since we have forced hot air in my apartment, I started to get nervous about the heat, if the power stayed out for long enough, it would start to get really cold, it was February after all.  Once I started to question my furnace, I immediately began to think of carbon monoxide poisoning.  No seriously, I did.  I started to wonder if the smoke alarms were up to date and in working order - I am sure they were, but that didn't stop me from worrying.  I panicked about my DVR, it had cut of right in the middle of The Good Wife, and I was really upset to be missing it.  Sidebar: The Good Wife is the best show on television, second to none.  If you aren't on that bandwagon yet, I suggest you get on it, now.  Since I had no Good Wife to keep me warm, I started to think about what else I could possibly do with myself if the power stayed out.  I thought of a simpler time, before electricity, and just how boring it must have been back then.  If only I had a quill pen, I might have been able to catch up on my correspondence.  I couldn't work on my blog, my computer would die in a matter of minutes, and my wireless connection wouldn't work without power.  I  wasn't tired, so going to bed was out of the question, so I lit about 10 Yankee Candles, and curled up with my Kindle and a book light I got for free when I bought my Snuggie.  If I didn't think it was really funny, I probably would have thought my situation was a tiny bit pathetic.  I do have to say, my room smelled pretty amazing with all those candles burning, so that was a definite plus.  

As the night wore on and I started to get ready for bed, I wondered if the power would come back on in the middle of the night and I'd be awoken to a brightly lit room, with the TV blasting.  That would not be awesome, but I would take that over not having the power come back on at all.  Sadly, I was not awoken in the middle of the night, and I woke up the next morning to find that the power had in fact, not come back on, but my room was absolutely freezing.  I had gone to bed with my Snuggie, sweatshirt blanket and my comforter on, but any inch of skin that was not covered was an icicle, like my nose.  Because of the horrific snow storm the night before, work had been cancelled so I didn't have to get up and get ready, thank goodness because I could barely handle taking my arm out from under the covers just to reach for the remote.  Having to get out of bed would have clearly resulted in immediate hypothermia.  I don't know what I would have done had work not been cancelled the night before.  Showering was not an option, due to the fact there was no hot water, but even more concerning was that my blow dryer wouldn't work, which every girl knows is an absolute travesty.  I was just about to call NStar when the power came back on and the heat started pumping again, crisis mildly averted!