My grandkids love to run around our house, inside and out, with the flashlights I keep strategically located in case of emergency. This means of course that each time there’s a blackout, and there have been several the past few years, the flashlights are never where I left them. Or else the batteries are dead. Maybe it’s better that way. It connects me with the world outside of Shorewood.
I’ve read there are only one or two hours of electricity a day in Baghdad. That makes me even more aware of all the things I can’t do when we have NO electricity for one or two hours, or seven. Last week Wednesday from about 5:30 PM to 1:30 AM, I couldn’t use the computer, listen to NPR, watch Amy Goodman on Channel 14, finish reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan for book club, nor even boil water on our gas stove.
Adolph and I ate cereal with raisins, bananas, and milk for supper, then decided to take a walk, a tradition with us during blackouts. We went outside, it was raining, and we came back in. I was thankful we were kept in by water and not by improvised explosive devices, trigger-happy soldiers, and suicide bombers.
