![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Ad Mundo Exteriore,
So yes, blackout. In the entire Northeast and parts of the Midwest, if you haven't heard. I wasn't caught on the subway, thank goodness, but it was a close call. If I'd finished that tutoring lesson on time, I would have been caught on the 7 train when the power went out. Luckily, I just wandered around looking for payphones that worked (only to realize that the phone at home wasn't receiving) and cursing my cell phone (because that went down too, though I didn't know that then). After eavesdropping on people commenting on the lack of traffic lights, I realized it was something affecting the whole city instead of just Flushing, so I scrambled to Father's office and got a ride home.
It was the most amazing sight I've ever seen. The cars all moved cooperatively, treating each intersection like a four-way stop sign. There were remarkably few accidents; I think everyone was actually trying to drive carefully. We ate dinner in the dark (water and gas still worked, thank goodness) with two candles on the living room table. I don't know what's supposed to be romantic about dinner by candlelight because that was a really annoying experience. I could barely see my bowl of rice, much less the side dishes. It was dreadfully hot, but I didn't mind that so much as the sheer boredom of being deprived of any sort of entertainment whatsoever. The candlelight was far too dim for reading, and as for computers and television, well, need I explain again that we were in a blackout?
So Father begins telling stories about growing up in Korea, which one would expect would run along the lines of, "Well, in my day, we had blackouts all the time." Well, that was what he said basically, but Father's a good storyteller and kept joking about how they had to dye all their clothes and blankets black to hide the fact that it was all stolen from the army. The dye was basically cheap ink, so when it rained, the dye would seep into your skin, leaving you looking as if you had been bruised all over. He also talked about how they would tie on shoes with straw, because real sneakers were impossible to come by, and when you kicked the ball, the shoe would go flying out further than the ball did. It's hard for me to imagine it all, but my parents did grow up in post-war Korea, when almost everyone was desperately poor. The places we read about in the newspaper seem so remote, and yet my parents lived through that kind of poverty when they were growing up. I really am a spoiled American brat.
We woke up at six this morning to find the power was still out, but it came back on suddenly around eight. The blackout already feels like a particularly weird dream, but I expect the news will continue to report on the matter until they figure out what went wrong. I hear the "Niagara-Mohawk" power grid went out, whatever that means. I assume that some hydroelectric plant up in Canada broke down or something, though I hear some nuclear facilities were malfunctioning as well. Father jokes, "It's all Bush's fault," and I feel inclined to agree. Whether or not the president is to blame, I still feel better if I say that.
All my tutoring lessons today were rescheduled for tomorrow, so I sat around watching movies and sleeping. Yes!
...Tari
So yes, blackout. In the entire Northeast and parts of the Midwest, if you haven't heard. I wasn't caught on the subway, thank goodness, but it was a close call. If I'd finished that tutoring lesson on time, I would have been caught on the 7 train when the power went out. Luckily, I just wandered around looking for payphones that worked (only to realize that the phone at home wasn't receiving) and cursing my cell phone (because that went down too, though I didn't know that then). After eavesdropping on people commenting on the lack of traffic lights, I realized it was something affecting the whole city instead of just Flushing, so I scrambled to Father's office and got a ride home.
It was the most amazing sight I've ever seen. The cars all moved cooperatively, treating each intersection like a four-way stop sign. There were remarkably few accidents; I think everyone was actually trying to drive carefully. We ate dinner in the dark (water and gas still worked, thank goodness) with two candles on the living room table. I don't know what's supposed to be romantic about dinner by candlelight because that was a really annoying experience. I could barely see my bowl of rice, much less the side dishes. It was dreadfully hot, but I didn't mind that so much as the sheer boredom of being deprived of any sort of entertainment whatsoever. The candlelight was far too dim for reading, and as for computers and television, well, need I explain again that we were in a blackout?
So Father begins telling stories about growing up in Korea, which one would expect would run along the lines of, "Well, in my day, we had blackouts all the time." Well, that was what he said basically, but Father's a good storyteller and kept joking about how they had to dye all their clothes and blankets black to hide the fact that it was all stolen from the army. The dye was basically cheap ink, so when it rained, the dye would seep into your skin, leaving you looking as if you had been bruised all over. He also talked about how they would tie on shoes with straw, because real sneakers were impossible to come by, and when you kicked the ball, the shoe would go flying out further than the ball did. It's hard for me to imagine it all, but my parents did grow up in post-war Korea, when almost everyone was desperately poor. The places we read about in the newspaper seem so remote, and yet my parents lived through that kind of poverty when they were growing up. I really am a spoiled American brat.
We woke up at six this morning to find the power was still out, but it came back on suddenly around eight. The blackout already feels like a particularly weird dream, but I expect the news will continue to report on the matter until they figure out what went wrong. I hear the "Niagara-Mohawk" power grid went out, whatever that means. I assume that some hydroelectric plant up in Canada broke down or something, though I hear some nuclear facilities were malfunctioning as well. Father jokes, "It's all Bush's fault," and I feel inclined to agree. Whether or not the president is to blame, I still feel better if I say that.
All my tutoring lessons today were rescheduled for tomorrow, so I sat around watching movies and sleeping. Yes!
...Tari
