Last week, I was sure we were getting close to having to turn on our air conditioners pretty soon and since November when we installed two new systems to our house to replace the original ones that were going on thirteen years of age, we have had to run them a couple nights when the weather got muggy and stale. What I wouldn't give to get back to that. This deep freeze sneaked up on us and it was only because we looked at the forecast to see of we could maybe plan to go to the lake this weekend that we noticed that the cold was coming very aggressively. Still, I thought it'll be bad for a couple days and I might miss Monday and if lucky maybe even Tuesday this week. Don't get me wrong, I am not lazy and the kind that looks for excuses to miss work, I really don't unless it is a holiday time and Wife is off too. I was shocked and a bit alarmed to find that our facilities were actually shutting down completely, as in the site was going to be taken off the power grid. In the 25 years I have worked there, we just don't do that, there was a winter break about ten years ago when they shut everything off to install new generators or something important like that, but our tools are really meant to be under vacuum and powered at all times. They told us it could be 1-3 days of complete power down from today. That means it could be the weekend before things start getting back to normal. We are just not prepared for this. On paper the weather does not look too bad. The last two nights we got down below ten degrees, but during the day we were in the mid 20's. Because of the snow though, we really can't leave the house to drive anywhere, it is just too dangerous. DD went and dug up the ice on the street, his girlfriend's supervisor, who is in California, wanted her to go to work. They pulled up a sheet of ice about an inch and a half thick sitting on top of the asphalt. We aren't going anywhere until that melts.
We have been really fortunate that we bought the freezer when Covid started. I bought a lot of food this past week, but I was assuming we would be stuck until Today, the latest. Thankfully, we still have 2-3 big packages of chicken breasts, a brisket, bunches of packs of burger patties, like 4-5 sausages, some breakfast sausages, bags of chicken tenders, fish sticks, a few pizzas, and then more stuff in the freezer attached to the fridge. I am not a fan of rice and noodles and crap like that, but we surprisingly have a bunch of bags still in the pantry. I am glad Boy and Sweetie are here, I would hate to worry about them in some apartment running out of food. DD and his gf have also benefited from being here, they usually rely on food delivery services, but that is not an option right now.
I know my folks have now been without power for at least 24 hours, some people have been without power since Sunday. We have been lucky so far, the worst part has been fighting the pipes from freezing over, this morning the hot water line was frozen, even though it made it through the night, I came down and checked at 6am and they were fine but then at 8:30am the hot water froze. We will have a huge water bill running the water at each bathroom and the kitchen for so many days, but it is better than a bill to fix a busted line and the mess that would entail.
If anything, this gives us a chance to cycle all the older food out of the freezer and give us a chance to start anew. I really like having an assortment of steaks, briskets, chicken, and a whole shelf of ice cream to enjoy but some of those dates are saying the meat is from the summer of 2020 and that makes me cringe a bit. Still, it is a good place to be, I am not complaining.
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