Saturday, December 22, 2012

Charlie Brown Christmas

"It was a dark and stormy night."  That was the beginning of every story Snoopy wrote sitting up on the rooftop of his doghouse.  The Kids pitch a fit if they think I'm going back up on the roof, so here I sit, but my story begins the same. 

It was a dark and stormy night.  Really dark.  I had a sinking feeling driving back from town yesterday when I saw a couple of PG&E trucks not far from home.  Sure enough, no power.  The wind had torn the screen door off from the first shed.  I'm talking a significant storm here.  PG&E has a wicked sense of humor.  "We expect to have power restored by five p.m."  Well, heck.  It was four-thirty; that's not so bad.  At five-thirty, they said, "We expect to have power restored by eleven thirty-six p.m."  (PG&E likes precision.)  Not able to do anything in the dark house, Bess (and Frank) and I went to bed early.  I didn't want to fall asleep in the chair with the oil lamps burning.  Waking numerous times during the night, the realization came that we would have to postpone Christmas.  This storm is really bad and it would make me a crazy person to think of the Kids on the road.  Flashlight in hand, at six a.m. I was calling for a PG&E update when the lights came back on!  Hurriedly making a cup of coffee and flushing the toilet, I hoped to find a weather report.  Weekend local news evidently is not so concerned with weather.  I've already talked with Deb and we've agreed that it would be better to spend a happy holiday together at another time than try driving through this mess and me worried sick.  We'll share the task of contacting the boys before they head up the hill.

I won't say I'm not disappointed.  I am.  On the plus side (what Steve would have called "the bright side"), all I had on the Christmas tree were the lights.  Pretty dismal when there's no electricity.  Talk about a Charlie Brown tree.  Christmas is when we're all together (and missing Pete).  By then I'll have lost this bah-humbug attitude.  Shining a little light on the subject does wonders.

1 comment:

Kathryn said...

I think all of your readers will echo your "Bah Humbug" for now, as Mother Nature has messed with the wrong day, YOUR holiday, but I do hope the storm passes and your Kids are able to congregate very soon.