Electricity envy

When we came back from dinner last night, the adjacent townhouse complex had power. I can't say that we were happy for them, I certainly wasn't. It was more a case of why them and not us? Yes, definitely electricity envy. It is rampant all over the city of Houston, as power is s-l-o-w-l-y being restored in neigborhoods, one by one, sometimes street by street. Our very diligent townhouse board president (we refer to him as the 'mayor') advised that we should get power back any time from today (Thursday), which would be a best case scenario, through to Saturday, worst case. All along, I thought it would take about a week total, so I'm not very optimistic for today or tomorrow.

My recently purchased (for hurricane Gustav which never reached us) Coleman propane camp stove has been a lifesaver. We use it several times per day, boiling water for coffee & tea and to cook hotdogs (veggie version for Kathleen and I, kosher beef ones for the boys) and I've even made some black bean filling for enchiladas, and a very tasty African-style sweet potato & garbanzo stew, which we served over brown rice. The pressure cooker worked great on the little gas stove.

The best that can be said for this experience, other than that it brought us together as a community, is that I am finding time to do some long-postponed house repairs. Ahh, the joys of applying 'spackle', primer and paint... Just as well hurricanes only come around every 25 years or so, in Houston.

No joy on the running front yet. Still recovering from the knee injury. It is getting better but I don't think I'll be able to run until some time next week. Very depressing, on top of everything else. And then Wall Street takes a dive. It is just as well that we don't have electricity otherwise I would certainly have had sleepless nights from watching too much TV. Just when you think it has reached a bottom, the Dow falls down a cliff. Scary stuff.