Brrr...

The lights went out yesterday, and they have been out since. Over 24 hours for us. That means no light and no heat. Last night, it meant no water pressure, either. We were trying to play dominoes by candlelight, which is a pretty tricky endeavor. Each of us ended up using small flashlights to actually see which domino we were trying to play off. We finally gave up and went to bed for a while.

I awoke sometime in the night with my mind racing about what needed to be done today in order to deal with conditions in the building. It served mostly to disturb my sleep. I was damned if I could actually come up with any intelligent ideas about what to do. I finally gave up on being smart and thought about how proud I was of my 8th graders back at the Halloween carnival when they had to run the show mostly themselves because I was helping out with concessions and got stuck there. Then I thought about what a good group of kids I have in the junior high this year and how much I am looking forward to getting back in the classroom on Monday. Then I thought about what an old grouch I am a lot of the time and that I need to loosen up a little and laugh at life. Finally, it occurred to me that this was the perfect opportunity to practice a little bit of that right then and there. I went back to sleep.

I woke up to a still dark, rather colder house. I looked out the front window of our bedroom. Light was streaming from the direction of the school, but there was no light to be seen anywhere else. The generator! Our maintenance man must have started up the generator! Why, that would mean that there might be water pressure! Off to the bathroom...yes! The faucet was flowing, which meant that we could FLUSH THE TOILET! Victory! I managed to rouse my sleeping sweetie, and checked the time...9 am. Maybe Paul (maintenance guy) had even MADE COFFEE!!!! We thought about it and decided to get up and get the dogs out and fed. That involved flashlights and even a head-mounted light. Very technical...then we filled a bag with breakfast stuff and headed to the school. There was light and heat and running water and a kitchen that worked and COFFEE!!!! Paul was here, along with one of the fellas from the power plant and a young mechanic. My wife made breakfast for us and the guys as well. And I got to have a cup of fresh, hot, strong COFFEE!!!! (Does anyone sense a theme here?)

What a weirdly wonderful morning...breakfast and coffee and the internet...I worked a little on my last lesson plan for next week, and answered some emails. At about noon, we got a call summoning us to a Slaaviq celebration that was to happen at 1pm. We ran home and got out of our PJs and into other clothes and walked through the snow to the celebration. The house that we went to had a generator and a wood stove going. It had light and heat in abundance. Maybe even too much. We were hot. It actually felt better on the porch. But the company was good and the food was better-I had a bowl of moose soup and some akutaq (our friend Michelle makes the best akutaq...)After that we headed home to the refrigerator that we call home for a little nap, and headed back to school with my little dog (he gets cold easily) and some dinner supplies.

We have been here for the most part since then. It is nearly 10 pm, and I suspect that we will go home when we get sleepy. Some houses have power, and some do not. It is not clear when we will get power back in the teacher housing, or in the village as a whole. The one good thing in this (other than coffee at the school when I get there) is that the weather has been warm today. The temperature has stayed pretty steady around the freezing mark. Last year at this time, nighttime temperatures were 50-60 degrees colder. I feel very fortunate when I think of that...