Can you get there by candlelight? Yes, and back again.

Yesterday afternoon, about three minutes after I'd gotten home from a very virtuous day of preparing my course packet and other necessary tasks, a mighty storm whisked up out of nowhere. Observe! My incisive on-the-scene commentary!

(04:42) redfoxtailshrub: ooh, thunderstorm pmadness.
(04:42) redfoxtailshrub: madness
(04:42) redfoxtailshrub: or, hm, wow, that's really windy
(04:42) redfoxtailshrub: is there a tornado warning?
(04:44) redfoxtailshrub: holy shit.
(04:44) redfoxtailshrub: a huge branch just blew by my window

It's just like you were RIGHT THERE, isn't it? Anyhow, this shockingly large tree part was in fact the whole top of a tree. It plummeted into our front yard, crushing half of the chain link fence separating our building's yard from the one next door (for we do live in the ritzy, chain-link-fence part of town) and making a remarkable sound. The cats and I made girly noises and skittered into the hall while the wind and rain continued. Gust, bang, boom, pour, etc.

Eventually it finished up and I frisked out to survey the damage. I like some nice chaos courtesy of the might of Nature, especially when it has not harmed me particularly. I quickly ascertained that my car was uncrushed, and so I was free to enjoy the wreckage. In our back alley (I love our back alley, which is quite perfect, complete with fat charming rats that do not molest you but merely skitter around of an evening, causing me to cry, "Ratty!"), I ran across my neighbor from across the hall, who was doing the same thing. "It's really lucky we still have power," he remarked, accurately.

About fifteen minutes later it changed its mind on that score, and soon S. and I were dining by candlelight. I have still not managed to go grocery shopping, but even spaghetti with sauce from a jar is rendered exotic and larky when you are surrounded by the lovely utilitarian flames of Emergency Candles. I was delighted to find the store in possession of these, alongside gardenia flavored pillar candles and the like, and all the gladder to have them when it turned out that the lights would stay out for about 20 hours.

They are actually called Emergency Candles, it says so right there on the packages, and one lucky white column was actually marked with a red ink serial number, which was supposed to go on the box, I suppose, but the big industrial Stamp-O-Meter struck in the little window allowing you to examine your Emergency Candles and see if they're really what you want in your house. They are definitely what I want in my house, let me tell you, especially when they have little serial numbers stamped on them. They burn ever so tidily, in neat non-dripping perfect cylinders, or at least until you move them and of course drip the wax, giving them ideas.

My delight with the functional utilty and beauty of the candles led to a reminiscence about gingerbread, which I will tell you about next time. That's enough for you for one day, and anyway, there's a new ominous thunderstorm brewing. I'm off to shut windows and keep my fingers crossed.

Posted by redfox at August 27, 2003 07:13 PM (dinner reports)

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