29 September, 2003 - 3:43 p.m.
Knight of the Heart was lovely, just lovely. The event was beautiful both site and weather. The people were fun. Serving feast was fun and gave me the opportunity to meet more people. The traffic for the drive home was henious... worse even than the flat tire on the Capitol Beltway on Friday afternoon on the way up. It was a wonderful weekend and am newly refreshed to face the challenges of this week.... at least I think I am.
Below was too funny and accurate not to share.
The 5 stages of grief after losing your power By CHRIS BROWNLOW, HamptonRoads.com (c) September 24, 2003
1. The honeymoon stage: You were expecting to lose power and you've prepared by stocking up on a variety of scented candles and aren't you glad you did? Because candlelight is so romantic and makes your home seem so warm and cozy during a nasty storm. And it's the perfect time to catch up on your reading and spend quality time with your family away from that pesky TV.
2. The rugged stage: The power is still out and the food in your freezer is starting to thaw. But that's okay because you can fire up the grill and cook all that meat before it spoils and share it with your neighbors. This makes you feel rugged and outdoorsy. You delude yourself into thinking that electricity is for wimps and living without only makes you stronger, like those pioneer families who tamed the wild frontier. You forget that frontier families didn't have looters, broken traffic lights and curfews to contend with.
3. The panic stage: The ice in your cooler has melted! You immediately jump in the car and join about 200,00 other people in search of ice, hitting every store in a 50-mile radius only to find their supplies have long since dried up. On the radio, you hear a report that a store a half-hour away has ice.You floor it towards the store - but horror of horrors! Your fuel gauge is on E! Oh why, oh why didn't you fill the tank before the storm?? Two hours later, you find yourself at the end of a 200-car line at a gas station with 10 bags of ice that you paid $50 for melting away on your floor boards.
4. The anger stage: You can't take it anymore. You've eaten enough processed squeezie cheese, drank more than your share of warm beer, taken too many cold showers and spent enough "quality" time with your family to last two lifetimes. You begin lashing out at anyone in earshot. People in the line waiting for ice, at the gas station. The neighbors you happily shared your grilled food with only days ago. You begin to suspect the neighbors with generators think they're better than everyone else with their fancy electricity. Their lighted porches seem to mock your less luminous living conditions The people who have electricity tell you, "Be patient because the power workers are working as hard as they can to restore your power so stop complaining." You consider punching them, but decide to invite them over to smell the rotting contents of refrigerator instead.
5. The primal stage: You've stopped showering altogether. Your eyes are narrowed and small like a moles' eyes. You hiss at sunlight. You no longer heat up your cans of soup and ravioli, preferring to eat your meals cold.Instead of reading, you entertain yourself by drawing stick figures on the wall and banging pots and pans together. You speak to your family in grunts and clicks. You begin to fashion to your clothes out of carpet remnants and your once upright posture is so bent over that now your knuckles drag clumsily along on the floor when you walk. Your new favorite saying? "Fire good."
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