DARK AND STORMY NIGHT

Three power outages in one week.
Three. Count 'em.
They're inevitable during storms. But the first one happened on a calm and  sunny morning.

The forest was bright and beautiful - like a Disney Technicolor film. Flowers were blooming, butterflies were fluttering. I felt like Snow White: little bluebirds were helping me do the chores, while I was singing "Some day my Prince will come"....

Don't read too much into that. It was a completely innocent analogy. Freudian interpretations have no business being here.

Anyway, the power suddenly went off. and boom! my perfect morning was ruined.

So last night I was doing work on the computer - when I heard the foreboding distant rumble of thunder.

My first thought:
Just what we need - - another fifty inches of rain.

My second thought:
There will be a power outage.

There was a power outage. Almost immediately.

Despite living in a rural area where misery and inconveniences are abundant - I am always alarmingly unprepared. I have one crappy Made in China flashlight with a power switch that seldom works. And a few Christmas candles that are about thirty years old.
And some packs of matches that are about forty years old, damp and impotent.

Descriptive Interjection:
Words cannot adequately describe how absolutely DARK it is here in the wilderness during a nighttime power outage.
It's beyond dark. It's far within the deepest depths of Eternal Blackness, where no semblance of light could ever penetrate.

My sole objective is to impress you.

The task of getting into the kitchen to retrieve the flashlight and candles was a near impossibility.
I stumbled into a lamp on a nightstand and broke it (the lamp - not the nightstand).
Then I walked directly into Bosco's water dish and the whole thing spilled on the carpet.

Despite the Eternal Darkness, I managed to locate my El Cheapo camera and captured some highlights of the miserable night.

 Bosco's water dish. He's a huge cat and has a huge thirst in the summer - so I bought him a huge doggie water dish. It made a HUGE mess on the floor when I stepped in it.

 Wind chimes on the front porch, surrounded by impenetrable blackness.

The lone swing, rudely illuminated by camera flash.

The back porch, which faces the edge of the forest. Watch out for wild coyotes.....and unfriendly ghosts.

I can only imagine how excited you are.

 During the blackout, Bosco managed to catch a mouse - which is dangling from his mouth (yuck!!).
My other cat Kitzee was sleeping.

Two candles that burned in my bedroom - until the power came back on just before dawn.

 Dawn, this morning. I was delighted to see the first glimpses of light above the trees.