A huge storm hit our area on Saturday, and no, I’m not talking about my wife’s reaction to my having to stay at work until 9:30 on Friday night and then spend the whole day – through dinner – at the office on Saturday. The storm took down trees and power lines. It took our house off the power grid at 1:00 on Sunday morning. The temperature, in the meantime, plummeted. When we were up on Sunday morning, the day of the Girl Child’s birthday party, it was 55 degrees in the house. In case you were wondering, no power with a forced air heating system means no heat in the house. It was around 25 degrees outside. It did not look good for our heros. Snow, ice everywhere, and a very hopeful Girl Child.

Happily, for her, the party went off without a hitch. Almost all of her guests came and she had a lovely time. We had the party out of the house at a local gymnastics place. The Girl Child was the center of attention, surrounded by her friends, all of whom seemed to like her and were happy to be with her. It was sweet to see. The kids were all run ragged and the real shocker was the Boy Child. My son is without fear and with exceptional coordination. He declined any and all help on the balance beam, walking all by himself from end to end, many times, and then happily threw himself into the pads to dismount. HeÂ’d climb on other things as high as he could and throw himself into matts. He bounced, he rolled, he insisted on doing everything the older kids were doing. The staff, unsolicited, volunteered that they had never seen anything like him. I think weÂ’re going to sign him up for gymnastics. IÂ’m not sure we have a choice. The remainder of the Carvel ice cream cake came with us.

After the party, we went back to the house. Temp? 49 and falling. Decision? Evacuation to my parents back in Westchester. Run all the taps in the house, pack the bags, set the alarm (on extensive battery backup) and hope for the best. As evacuations go, it wasnÂ’t horrible. We were taken out for a lovely dinner and the Viking Bride and I slept on the floor of my childhood room while the kids had a sleep over in my sisterÂ’s old room. Just the same, we slept terribly and the kids were up hours and hours before they should have been.

Power, according to CT L&P, was not going to be restored until midnight tonight. However, according to my alarm company (I heart these guys), power came back on at around 7:30 this morning. I immediately called the house and was thrilled to hear my wifeÂ’s voice on the answering machine, meaning that power really was back.

The kids are spending the rest of the day with my mother and my wife, who headed back up to the house, just called in to report that the power is back, the heat is back, all the water is still running, and, mirabile dictu, none of the Champagne froze and exploded!

Not exactly how my wife had hoped to start her birthday, but, there you go.

Happy birthday, my child bride!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:35 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 565 words, total size 3 kb.

1 Happy Birthday Mrs. Penseur. It's nice to see that there is somebody else enduring the same two months of torture buying presents for their loved ones. My wife turned another year older on Saturday. Just think come February 14th (15th) we're free and clear for another 10 months.

Posted by: phin at January 16, 2006 11:30 AM (Xvpen)

2 Happy Birthday Mrs. Penseur! Phin, darling? Never off the hook. Never. All that excitement and you STILL wrote the best. Brief. Evar!? Go, YOU!! ) xoxo

Posted by: Margi at January 16, 2006 11:53 AM (nwEQH)

3 Carvel ice cream cake...You had to mention the Carvel ice cream cake...We used to have a Carvel store in my hometown and the ice cream was awesome. Wonder if they deliver?

Posted by: Howard at January 16, 2006 12:03 PM (u2JaN)

4 Sounds like he's going to want Xtreme gymnastics. Hehe. Happy Birthday, VB!

Posted by: Jim at January 16, 2006 01:19 PM (tyQ8y)

5 Dear VB: Happiness today and ALL days. Glad to hear all is calm now.

Posted by: Wicked H at January 16, 2006 02:00 PM (iqFar)

6 A Carvel's opened near here about a year ago. Good stuff. Still, I like Blue Bell and Braum's (Texas local favorites) best. Happy Birthdays (to GC and the Mrs.) P.S. Another reason I like reading your blog - you use phrases like "mirabile dictu" without sounding pretentious. That's quite a trick.

Posted by: JohnL at January 16, 2006 10:23 PM (dYzx6)

7 Luckily we didn't lose power since we normaly keep the house at 55 degrees during winter. (85 in summer, mheh.)

Posted by: Tuning Spork at January 17, 2006 12:29 AM (i1jt5)

8 Happy Birthday Mrs. Penseur.

Posted by: Mia at January 17, 2006 01:27 AM (8No2c)

9 Happy Birthday Ms. RP!

Posted by: oddybobo at January 17, 2006 11:09 AM (6Gm0j)

10 Gee, RP, I missed that it was the missus' birthday too! Happy Birthday, Mrs. RP!

Posted by: Mark at January 17, 2006 12:59 PM (IPp2K)

11 Happy Belated Birthday, Mrs. RP! Sounds like it was quite the start! Amazing what happens to people when you don't visit their blog for awhile. I feel like I missed out on being helpful or something! :-\ Stay safe and warm, all of you!

Posted by: Amber at January 18, 2006 06:00 PM (zQE5D)

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