Happy Thursday, Kibitzers!
Can anyone guess what this is a picture of? It’s been sitting outside my house for almost a week now.
The backstory. Last Friday evening, while binge-watching The Good Wife, the lights started flickering and making weird noises. The TV screen flashed some odd notice I’ve never seen before. In the kitchen, the fridge was in the midst of a brownout but the oven clock was still working as was the power in the bedrooms and bathroom.
I turned off all the power, feeling really spooked; things felt so surreal I had trouble recalling where I had stored all my emergency supplies after last year’s Public Safety Power Outage. About ten minutes in, a text came from PG&E saying power would be restored by midnight. I went to bed.
No power in the morning but another text came in saying power by noon. My neighbor called out to me as I came up onto the street “Did you hear that big boom last night?” I hadn’t but apparently the problem was right under our street! Literally under my feet. A transformer or something had exploded.
Went to get a Venti Latte at the drive-through Starbucks, run some errands, walk the dog. Came home to a bunch of neighbors standing outside my house. PG&E had just been by. They were going to have to put a generator out on the street but couldn’t because my neighbor’s car was parked in the way and the neighbor wasn’t home. Naturally, it was unseasonably cold that day and we were all shivering as we tried to figure out how we could make enough room for the generator. My next-door neighbor said he was going to get in touch with PG&G and tell them they could block his driveway.
It was too cold to stay home so I took the dog and went for a drive with the heater on in the car. By the time I got home around 3:30, the generator was set up.
So yep, that’s a picture of a huge generator that PG&E rented and had towed in. It’s been powering our block for almost a week now. Noisy! Today, there are no parking signs in front of my house and a crew is working further down the street. No big machinery here yet but the signs say no parking through 5 pm tomorrow.
So how is everyone this evening?
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