Last night I picked up a Papa Murphy’s pizza on my way home. It was about half way through cooking when the power went out. Unlike the last few days when I’ve lost power for an eyeblink – just enough to require the electronic clocks to be reset – this time the power stayed off.
After about 10 minutes, I took the pizza out of the cooling oven and ate it. It wasn’t really done but it was good enough, particularly considering the alternatives. The pizza and the bottle of wine I cracked were to celebrate some news that I am not yet allowed to tell.
I had flashlights but no candles. Rose, of course, had some candles and brought some over so we sat in their flickering light and drank wine. When the bottle was finished and the lights hadn’t come back on, she went home and I went to bed.
The weird thing about last night’s power outage was that some of the lights were still lit. Any incandescent on a switch I tried came on dimly, about 30%. My one incandescent light that is on a resistance dimmer would not come on at all. A night light that is LED glowed at about 30%. The apartment out my back window (where the big TV is) had outside lights that were flashing as if they were trying to strike but couldn’t. The TV was dark. I thought about measuring the actual voltage but didn’t. I didn’t care that much!
I did go around and unplug the computer so the weird voltage wouldn’t damage it. I threw the breakers to the oven in case it came back on with the power and I was sleeping.
PG&E actually called my phone to tell me my power was out and that only 113 homes were affected. Up the hill out the kitchen window all the houses had lights on. I guess I am kind of curious as to why such a small number of buildings were affected and what was going on with the leakage. Maybe with all the solar panels and other local power sources these days there was some voltage trickling around backwards. There are supposed to be interlocks to prevent that but perhaps some are wildcatted in without interlocks. Be careful out there, PG&E guys!
It’s all good now. The sun is shining and the breeze is moderate. I hope to be given permission to share my good news soon.