When you have been sheltering in place for over 70 days, unusual twists to daily routine can be fun. Today's was a power outage.
That isn't always fun. Food can spoil (and since we got a delivery this morning, that would be bad), but the outage was only for about two hours and we didn't need to open the fridge. It started around 6, right as I began making dinner and the girls were getting out of their showers (I realized it had been several days since their last ones, and their hair was becoming more than a little greasy. R. had also asked earlier if I could cut her hair after her shower- she wanted a "summer do"- so that was a bit of incentive for them to get cleaned.
Fortunately on the dinner front, we have a gas stove, and what I planned to make involved veggie burgers (easy on a stove top), home fries (check) and salad (already made). It's also the end of May, so while shadows were starting to form, it was still pretty light out.
The girls immediately started jumping around, excited about the possibility of using candles and building forts "because Mommy, when the power goes out, you HAVE to build a fort." Considering the number of times I've suggested my student build forts (usually when studying Margaret Fuller's Autobiographical Romance and discussing the importance of childhood in Philosophy and Literature), it would have been rather hypocritical for me to not allow this. By the time I finished making dinner and called the girls in, the antique loveseat was covered in an Elsa and Anna comforter, there were a piano bench and two small end tables covered in a quilt to form a tunnel, and my yoga mats were hanging off the fooseball table as a makeshift doorway. The girls were quite pleased with themselves.
It was getting a bit darker in the kitchen, and Jeff had a whole box of candles out on the back porch, so he brought them in, and I approved or disapproved based on if they were scented (scented candles make my already not-happy allergies worse). All told, we had about seven that would work.Jeff lit them, and we had dinner by candlelight, followed by a family chess game between Jeff and the girls. Riley inquired about her hair cut, and I told her I wasn't so sure cutting her hair in the dark was the best plan, but she was determined, so we moved to a window, and by the light of the waning sun, I started to trim. "No Mommy, go shorter". Since the last time I cut her hair, she ended up thrilled for a day, and then lamenting her short hair for the next several months, I offered a compromise-there would be significant trimming in the front, and I would taper it until it was long in the back. She agreed, and I'm pretty proud of myself for the end result. All those years of trimming Barbie's hair clandestinely in the playroom as a child finally paying off (now if the kids want their hair dyed with watercolors, I'm their gal).
The power was still out when I cruised over to my mom's to pick up this week's grocery order. We've been sharing, although today, I got an email from Instacart, and they apparently have opened up more delivery slots. Seems that more people are going to the store, or maybe Insta hired more folks, but either way, deliveries are easier to come by. Mom was on the front porch, Lysoling down some of the packages, and I was able to pick up my bags and haul them to the car. By the time I got home, PSEG had restored power, and all was back to normal.
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