Lost weekend!

On Thursday, I was looking forward to a three day weekend at the torch. By 7 pm Thursday night, I was sitting at home with my son and the power was out. It lasted until Sunday evening!

Thursday night was a night of no sleep - the trees were bent over heavy with snow on the leaves that hadn't turned completely russet yet. They looked like wilted flowers in a vase. Around midnight, I could hear creaking and snapping as they finally yielded to the weight of the wet snow. Trees fell on our house (as far as I can see, no serious damage), a tree fell across our driveway and in the back yard. There was nothing I could do but listen and watch. Since the power was out, my son and I slept on the couches in our great room where we have a fireplace. I kept the fire going all night to keep us warm.

The next morning I awoke to a scene similiar to "Clobbered" (taken from the Buffalo News and photographed by Derek Gee). We were stranded because of the tree blocking our driveway and the 2 feet of snow. My husband was out of town in Michigan where the storm actually started. We spent Friday wondering if he would be able to fly home and trying to keep warm.

Friday night, we ran out of firewood but my husband made it home. He said it was eerie walking through the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport when the power was out - he had to de-plane on the runway and walk through hallways lit only every so often.

Saturday we drove an hour and a half to Rochester, New York and spent a few hours standing in line to buy a generator. Funny how you can bond in a crisis with people you don't know. We stood in line with a variety of other people from Buffalo or those who had family in Buffalo - chatting away as if we knew each other as neighbors. We were fortunate to get one of the 15 generators delivered to the store that day. It kept us warm for the rest of the power outage.

Last night at about 8 pm, the lights came back on. Happy and relieved, we shut down the generator and took it to a family member who was still waiting for power to come back on.

I didn't think about the "lost weekend" of glass. I was just glad to be warm again! I still have alot of trees to clear out from the yard - hmmm firewood for next year?