by wring » Wed Nov 15, 2017 6:46 pm
In our household, that's the standard answer to a variety of things like "when's dinner going to be ready?" (including when he's dishing up his own meal). As we've mentioned a time or two, we live in 'the home' (senior housing). Our building is actually a refurbished old high school, located in downtown Mason. There's 4 floors of apartments, mostly one bedroom, some two bedroom, a couple of efficiency apts. And it keeps it's old look on the outside, each apt is very distinct and different floor plans.
Naturally, since much has changed over the past 90 years since it's been built, various upgrades have been made, from the elevator , plumbing, electrical etc. But apparently, more upgrades had to be done. Last summer, we were told the main electric panel had to be repaired, which meant that the power had to be shut down for an entire day. Management, though, did it's best to make it ok, arranging for folks to hang out all day at city hall, games, activities, meal etc. But as things happen, it didn't get done that day, something about the contractor bailing on it at the last minute.
Fast forward to yesterday. It got rescheduled for then. We were told to be downstairs by 8 am 'cause the power would be off, but it would be on by "5 pm at the latest", and they pointed out to people to keep their frig closed, take anything out that they needed for the day, reminders that the water would still be on, but no heat or electric, make sure electronics were off, unplugged in case of power surge etc. We decided to sleep in til noon ish, make the trek down the stairs, head out to a buffet for a leisurely lunch, on to a favorite produce etc store (horrocks), and leisurely way it back home after 5. So we did.
As we neared the place, we noted that there were no apartments lit up. NOt a good sign. Sure enough, about 25 people were huddled in the community room, resident manager was there. It was explained that things got delayed, they weren't able to start til 10:30 am, but they were sure it would be done by 6 at the latest. Ok, that's only about 20 minutes from now, no problem.
About 6:15, Danielle headed downstairs to ask again. And was told "any minute now". By 7:00, she went back downstairs, came back at 7:05 and said "they said "20 minutes at most". by 8 pm, things were getting pretty uncomfortable. Danielle had arranged for about 30 coney dogs to be brought in (when she'd sent out for them, there were about 15 people there, figured 2 each), since we'd just come back from a buffet (sort of), and most of the people there had been there all day, we left the coneys for everybody else. But it was getting a tad chilly in there, without the sun shining in the windows, and some folks were huddled under blankets. Just before 9, Danielle went back down, loaded for bear this time. Again she was told 'any minute now' We joked about '20 minutes' a lot. One funny story about how the day went - Danielle had to turn away the cable guy who was responding to a call from one of the residents that her cable was out...
By that time, I'd had enough, and headed upstairs. Enzo, bless his heart stayed downstairs w/our cart of stuff from the store, waiting for power and the elevator. I trudged up the stairs. The stairway had big windows that opened to the street outside so there was some light from outside streetlights. But on our floor, our little corridor had no outside windows, the corridor to the north of us had windows opened to the courtyard which had no lights either. So it was absolutely black. I had a flashlight but had to be really careful to not let our kitties (especially the black one) getting out. Yellow kitty was perplexed, her house was different (we never had no lights on, and mom and dad were both gone).
Power finally came back on at like 10:15, and about half an hour later, Enzo finally made it home. Seems that the elevator didn't come back on with the power, it needed to be reset. It'd take 20 minutes....
It also took a while for our cable and internet to filter it all through, so the tv was cutting out every 5 seconds or so, making watching it frustrating, internet same thing.
But all's good again.