Lights Out (Sat, 2 Apr, 2011)

Last night the power went out around midnight. It was so dark that I couldn't tell any difference between having my eyes open and having them closed. I laid in bed thinking about what to do. I know that mom usually gets up several times during the night to make her way to the bathroom, but she has a nightlight to guide her. I was especially concerned because she had too much to drink before dinner, and she couldn't even get up from the dinner table without help. I had to guide her over to her green chair, about 6 steps away, and she collapsed into it and immediately fell asleep. (PS: There is absolutely no way I could prevent her from drinking without causing World War Three and making this situation about a hundred times more difficult.)

I sat with her all evening while she slept heavily in her chair, but eventually I went upstairs to bed because she didn't want to move out of her chair. So when the power went off I worried that if she did get up in the middle of the night, she might still be unsteady on her feet from the effects of the alcohol, and even if she wasn't, she would still come out to a pitch black room with a coffee table with sharp edges in the path between her room and the bathroom.

So eventually I felt my way blindly down the stairs and stopped at her door and called out, "Mom?" I had planned to tell her that the power was out, but she was sleeping so heavily that she didn't wake up. So I crept across the dark living room and was able to find the lighter and lit a couple of candles. Then I didn't know what to do, so I laid down on the couch, thinking that if she did get up I would be there to help guide her to the bathroom. I was also concerned about the house getting too cold for her, because she relies on her electric blanket at night, and I was pondering whether to make a fire in the wood stove (which would definitely wake her up) or hope that the power would come back on. Eventually I decided on the latter. I left two candles (in glass jars) in the safest place I could find, and figured that at least if she did get up she would have some light, and I snuck back upstairs at about 4am.

Turned out that she got up about 4:30 and figured out that the power was out, dropped her flashlight and broke its bulb, found the other flashlight, found her phone number for PPL and called them to report it. She thought she had accidentally left the candles burning!

The power was back on by 5:30am. Mom actually got a pretty good night's sleep, since she slept all evening in her chair and then slept in her bed till 4:30, then went back to bed and didn't get up till 7am.