I was driving home from work the other night and I felt like I could see a million stars in the mountain sky. As I was picking out Orion’s belt ion the distance, I thought to myself, something is a little off. Why is it so dark? It wasn’t until I came around the wide sweeping corner near my house that it occurred to me… No lights were on anywhere. I drove by our local gas station in town, The Depot and sure enough the pumps were empty and every light was out. Not too surprising when you have lived in the mountains twenty six years. The power goes off all the time. I often work with many small job electricians near me to repair these kinds of issues but since it wasn’t super pressing I enjoyed the view. It is nice in the evening when it is so pitch black that you can see every star and constellation in the vast night sky. It’s not quit as fun twelve hours later when I found myself with no power still, throwing stinking chicken from my fridge into the trash.
Let’s back up a little; back to my commute home… The usual driving real fast on mountain highways, flipping people off, shooting and singing country music at the top of my lungs. Then finally reaching my casa only to discover I have to maneuver my house by cell phone light. No use lighting candles at this point. When I get home from my night shift at midnight I go right to bed. I’m a morning person, but I love to work nights. So I try and go to sleep right away so I can still get up at 6 A.M. Before going to bed I turned my fan onto the on position so I would hear when the electricity came back on.
I woke up at five A.M. to the sound of my cat screeching. That little ass hole is also a morning person. Yet I did not hear the fan running. WTF? The power was still out? No wonder those cats were loud and angry! My anger at Southern California Edison willed me out of bed. The first thing I did was text Alicia; she’s a morning person, gets up at five to go jogging and I can always text her early. Then I got on the phone and called Edison. That’s when I learned it was a scheduled outage and the power was suppose to be out 10 P.M. to 6 A.M. Didn’t I get the card they mailed to me? Um no. That’s when the guy at Edison told me it had been mailed to the wrong address, awesome. He then told me my power should be back on within the hour.
I was annoyed at this point but whatever. I couldn’t watch FOX News or my horse racing I had taped from the night before so I went for a mile run, than came back and did some kick boxing. I spent some time writing in Word to transfer to my blog later, on my laptop, until my laptop lost power an hour later. It was 7 A.M. Still no power. Shit.
I grabbed my cell phone and called Edison back. This time they informed my power would be back on by eight A.M. I hung up, annoyed and thought well at least I can make some coffee in my French press. Then I remembered I couldn’t grind the beans. Shit. That’s when I got really annoyed. Coffee isn’t something I really crave until I am absolutely denied it, and then I get angry. No power, no TVG, no internet and no coffee make Amber very angry indeed. Well, since I had nothing else to do I made a breakfast sandwich on the stove top with some bacon I had already cooked up the other day.
Best Breakfast Sandwich Ever
Sharp aged cheddar cheese
Apple wood smoked bacon, cooked
Omega enriched eggs
Coconut oil
Multigrain bread
Spinach
Spread some coconut oil on the griddle; fry the egg in it, and the bread, lightly. When you flip the bread over sprinkle the cooked side with the shredded cheddar cheese. Top with the fried egg, spinach and bacon. Enjoy until the power comes back on.
All the food in my fridge was starting to get ripe. I had some red onions cut up from earlier in the week and they were getting pretty stinky. The stuff in the fridge was not even cold any more. The items in the freezer were okay, except for the ice cream that was completely melted. I started throwing away the spoiled food after I had breakfast. Mayo, ice cream, raw chicken, chicken livers, salad dressing, mayo, and now fermented juice all in the trash. Half my food was spoiled! If I had a warning I could have at least put some of this food in an ice chest over night! I was getting more mad every non caffeinated moment!
At eight A.M. I called Edison again and was once again told my power would be back on by the end of the hour. I let the guy have it, this time. This was the third time I had called in three hours! Was the power even going to be back on today? Probably, he told me. I tried not to laugh.
“What about all this spoiled food?” I asked? Mr. Edison- I-don’t-know-when-your-fucking-power-will-really-be-back-on told me I could go on the Edison website and fill out a form for the cost of the spoiled food. That would be helpful…IF I HAD POWER! OR COULD USE THE INTERNET!
I gave up on harassing the people at Edison and instead spent the morning trying to clean the house (Can’t use the vacuum) and working out to the background noise of my cats crying, and no music. At eleven I was starving and made this delicious pizza, sans electricity with my gas grill in the backyard
Hummus Pizza
Pizza dough
Flour
Edamane hummus
Tahini sauce
Sun dried tomatoes
Feta cheese
Red pepper flakes
Sprouts
Spinach
Lots of olive oil or garlic oil
Roll out the pizza dough and flour. Turn the gas grill to very low heat. Oil one side of the dough, heavily. Make sure all of your other ingredients are assembled at this point, ready to go. Put the dough oiled side down on the grill. Oil the other side of the dough. Close the grill. Wait one to two minutes. Open the grill, with a metal spatula check the dough to see if it’s cooked, but not burned. When it is, flip the dough. Cook until just browned on the other side.
Move the dough inside, spread with the hummus, and tahini sauce, than feta, the chili flakes, sun dried tomatoes and garnish with the veggies.
My power did not come back on until well after eleven A.M. The first thing I did was make a claim online Edison’s website. Their website said they would get back to me in three days. A week later I called, and was told it takes two weeks to process a claim. Okay, whatever. Than today a claims adjuster calls to tell me my claim was denied.
I argued up and down with the guy for thirty minutes. He said they had mailed me out a card warning of the outage and it’s not their fault if I didn’t receive it. Then he told me it’s normal for the power to go out in mountain areas for up to three days at a time. I told him, I have lived in this area 26 years and never experienced a twelve hour outage, except when the whole mountain was evacuated for two weeks during the wild fires. My neighbors haven’t heard of an outage that lasts this long either. He then told me that I’m the only person in my area to put in a claim, when I know for a fact several of my neighbors have also put in claims. So after half an hour of arguing with the guy, I lost my temper, my mountain rage appeared and I called the guy an asshole and hung up. Stupid mountain life that I love.
