My Grattitude for Alfred

As many of you know Storm Alfred wreaked some havoc in my state and my town. Oddly, during the eight days without power, I never got frustrated or stressed or angry. I really was thankful for many things. This is funny, because after Hurricane Irene, we lost power for only 24 hours and I was so stressed that our sump pumps would over flow into the basement, I was a borderline lunatic. Back then, I was thankful for our neighbor Robert who hooked up his generator to our pumps to pump us out a few times a day!

I reflected on all I was grateful for during the aftermath of storm Alfred and they are:

•My forward thinking (okay, you can think of it as doomsday thinking or my husband attributed it to my love of spending money.) in buying a generator immediately after storm Irene. My husband is right, I do have problem and love to shop—but really, does he think my problem is so bad that I would gleefully choose to spend that much money on a piece of equipment? Regardless of the reason, he was pretty happy on day two of the power outage when we could hook up the sump pumps! We only used it for the sump pumps and our electric chainsaw so my husband could take care of the tree debris in the yard. Most people have gas chainsaws—not us—we had to hook up our electric chainsaw to a gas powered generator!!!

•It could’ve been worse. Imagine if this happened in January. (Mind you, I realize the devastation would not be as bad in January because the leaves would’ve been off the trees…..) However, I was grateful that it was not 20 degrees outside. We did not need to use the generator for heat. Yes, the house was cold. We spent many days outside of the house and at night we all slept in the basement with blankets. I was actually too warm some nights!

•Perhaps I did not go crazy because I had a warm, friendly house to shower in. My niece and her family never lost power—and they only live about 3 miles away from us. I was extremely grateful for their hospitality. It was nice to shower, warm up, charge my phone and have some fun meals with her family and other displaced houseguests!

•Facebook, yes I said it. I am grateful for Facebook AND my smart phone. The information I received from Facebook friends, the local news channels and especially, my town’s police department was vital. If you are on Facebook, check to see if your local police department has a Facebook page. I checked for their status updates all the time. A big thank you goes out to the local police. Sometimes I wonder if a smart phone is worth the monthly charge. I will not question that anymore.

•I mentioned how at night I would often get too warm. I have the best blanket to thank for that. I bought it at Target last year—it is their own “Home” brand. One of my best purchases ever. I liked the first one I bought last year so much; I bought three more so we would all have one. They are so warm and soft. I did check to see if they have them on their shelves this year—and they do not. I will keep checking!

• The Alphabet game and Six Degrees of……. I was thankful for these games that do not require light or any type of power—just family and friends! If you do not know what the Alphabet game is—it is simple. You pick a topic, for instance movies. You then take turns going through the alphabet naming movies that begin with the letter you received. (e.g. All The President’s Men; Benji; Casablanca, etc.) The problem is you tend to run out of categories. We actually ended up using "swear words" as a category with our teenage daughters. Hey, it was a historic storm—we needed to add some levity to the situation!! Oh and if you do not know the Six Degrees game—essentially you mention two actors and try to link them via their work. (E.g. Danny Glover and Taylor Swift—how do you link them? Danny to James Marsden (Death at a Funeral) Marsden to Kate Bosworth (Straw Dogs) Bosworth to Topher Grace (Win a Date with Tad Hamilton) Grace to Swift in Valentine’s Day. (We found you can link many people through Valentine’s Day and Ocean’s 11). The best part of the game was when Taylor Lautner was mentioned my husband said, “I have heard of her, who is she again?” Immediately a tweet was fired off by a kid to share Dad’s lack of Lautner knowledge.

•The kindness of friends--we received many offers to warm up, charge electronics, shower and use WIFI. It is wonderful to see such kindness.

•CL&P and all the other line crews from other states and Canada that helped us get our power back! They have taken a lot of heat—but Alfred was very destructive. I would not have expected to get power back in less than 5 days. It is all about setting your expectations people. Not everything in 2011 can be fixed with a push of a button.

•Finally, I am a bit of TV addict. My daughters are too. Well, we all survived a week without television. (My niece’s cable was out so we did not have access to TV or the internet there.) However, why was that so easy? Knowing that we could catch up On Demand or online!!!!

Eight days without power was not the worst experience in my life, in fact I thought parts of it were quite fun!