Almost on time
The clocks showed 01h03. I checked. And that betrayed a key detail. They (faceless, anonymous) had cut the power. Late. Three minutes, but a lot could have happened.
This was an expected moment. I had prepared, for years, to assure my own safety. A generator. Extral fuel. An extra dog, who had already chosen his place, under the bed covers. As the power went off, and the symphony of UPS alerts “alerted” me, the other dog did the only thing available. He vomited. Loudly. I’m getting better at moving around in total darkness (on the way to the switches).
Someone asked me “Why don’t you turn off the generator when you go to bed?” Now you know why. The easiest way to silence those beeps is to restore current. I can handle a few seconds, before the roar of the generator covers thing up. I can’t handle long spells of random noise. I’ll pay the price.
With everything under control, we went to bed. The power cut was a matter of hours, and it coincided with a need to reset the clocks (end of DST). Synchronicity.
And’ that’s how we began the long slide into winter. Darkness. Right now, I’ve reset the cuckoo, so I feel secure in my combination of analog and digital. Relying on sunrise is very “old school”. If the power goes out before next spring, I will jump to a conclusion that something important has happened. Last night, less.
We will have to return the loaner dog to hi s family, so my under the covers backup will be gone. Normal.
