If your neighborhood is anything like mine, and you went out for an early morning Sunday constitutional, you were treated to the sound of…. Generators. Yeah. We were treated to an Easter power outage. I woke up at some point very early yesterday morning with the full moon shining in my eyes. I thought to myself, “golly, what a nice quiet morning.” I rolled over to see what time it was, but, alas, my Internet clock/radio was dark. I knew the radio part was off before I looked at it, because I go to sleep (to the extent that I actually sleep) listening to the Old Time Radio channel, and it had gone quiet at some point overnight. I figured I must have accidentally pulled the power cable out (I do that sometimes – the headphone cable gets wrapped around the power cables from the two – yeah, two; sucks to be old – heating pads I sleep with, and one good turn can send the whole thing crashing down). So the next thing I tried was my bedside lamp. A brief whimper of light as the LEDs used up the last bit of juice stored in the capacitor, and then darkness. Well shit.

Since I had to take a leak anyway, I got up and after taking car of business, I used my phone to check the New York State Electric and Gas website to see if this was a widespread problem or (worse) if it was just me.

While it wasn’t exactly widespread, it wasn’t just me, either – there were about 230 homes without power (including all seven of us on my street). It was 4:18 AM and they were anticipating having the power back on at 7:15. So I figured I might as well go back to bed and get under the covers and wait it out. At least I wouldn’t have to listen to the sump pumps run every five minutes.

Oh.

Shit, the sump pumps. Forgot about them. I have three sump pits in my basement (and they aren’t there for decoration, either). Now that the weather’s warmed up a bit and much of the snow has melted, the level of the underground stream below my basement has risen substantially, and at least one of those pumps is running at pretty much any given moment.

At least if there was electricity, they would be.

So I put on my headlamp and headed downstairs to see how bad things were and, much to my surprise, things weren’t too bad, as it turned out. Some water down there (a couple boxes of books that will never smell the same again), but not the total flood I’d anticipated. Not yet anyway. Still, it meant I’d need to go futz with the generator.

So I dragged the thing outside into the cold, dark, windy morning and tried to figure out how to plug the twist-lock cable in (normally not a difficult thing, but while half asleep at 4:30 in the morning – with no coffee – it seemed quite the puzzle. Try to plug it in, won’t go. Turn 90°, try again. No. Another 90, then another. No. Stare at the outlet. Stare at the plug. Try again. No.

Well, so, eventually I got it plugged in and fired up the generator, then made my way downstairs again to plug the other end of the cord into the transfer switch and, said, “let there be light!” And there was light. And heat. And sump pumps. And (most importantly) coffee. Yay! Another Easter miracle.

I of course have my cable modem and router hooked up to a generator circuit but, sadly, Time Warner wasn’t keeping up their end of the bargain. Fortunately, I was able to turn my phone’s mobile hotspot on so I could use my tablet (I never use anywhere close to my 2 GB a month anyway) while I sat and listened to the generator run.

We finally got our power back at about 8:40. Thank goodness for generators.

Well, I reckon it’s time to get back to work. Or maybe go to lunch. I’m flexible.