Happiness is a Warm Puppy

The house was freezing this morning and although John had gotten a pot of coffee going,  it was decaf and we were out of milk. Actually, we weren't out of it but it looked a bit suspect after a day in a warming fridge, so I threw it away. We have learned a few things during two months of power outages, one of which being not to buy more than a quart of milk at a time. Since it only took three minutes to get dressed in the cold without a shower, we decided to go to Trail House at 7am for a cup of delicious coffee in a warm room with a place to charge our phones. John forgot to bring the charging cord, but they had one of those too. (He also left the phone there and had to go back and get it) We seemed to be there during doggy hour since several people came in with dogs including this adorable 10 week old Australian shepherd/border collie with one blue eye, one brown eye, big paws and soft fur. 

 The helicopters were flying low over our house when we got back, giving us hope that the lines were being checked and the power might come on later. We have concluded that our proximity to high tension transmission lines at the top of Los Alamos Road must put us in a priority location for power shutoffs...especially since we  think that the enormous numbers of dump trucks going up the roads on both sides of our house all summer have had something to do with rebuilding the pylons of those lines.

There have been some lifesavers while learning to live caveman style. The main one is my car. I have spent quite a lot of time sitting in my car where I can:
1) Get warm by turning on the seat warmer. I remember when I thought these were frivolous and unnecessary in a climate where it rarely freezes. I was wrong...they are wonderful.
2) Listen to the Radio. This was even more important last time when there were fires burning, we were evacuated and we weren't able to get much information except from the local radio station. It was less important this time since the main thing being aired were the impeachment hearings and I do much better listening to the recap/rehash. My standby is the classical music station which was far more soothing....
3) Charge the cellphone. It takes longer, and is necessary to drive around whilst doing it, but is definitely more reliable than the solar powered back up charger which takes a long time to recharge. Since the cellphone is the only device that works without wifi, I rely on it for just about everything, including Blipfoto. It, like the back up charger, doesn't work very quickly, but driving around looking for better reception is possible.

I love my car....
 
We have also learned that the hot tub stays not exactly hot, but at least slightly lukewarm...enough to wash our faces with something less than ice cold water, and the fridge stays pretty cold with frozen gallon bottles of water in it. It also helps if there is practically no food in it. We had to give away yet another Blue Apron box since we didn't have enough lead time to cancel it.

Dana texted us on her way to work to say that 'the Safeway parking lot looks like a PG&E convention',* giving us further hope that the power would be coming on soon.

The guy called Dominick came to inspect the new roof, and I talked to him about making use of the solar panels with batteries as a back-up power source. He was just the right person to talk to as he used to work for PG&E. He said it was perfectly possible to use one battery and an emergency switch to keep essential things running during a shut off. There are many advantages to using a battery one of the main ones being that they are quiet! The only problem now seems to be that PG&E has thirty days from the time the solar panels are hooked up to inspect them ('for our safety') before we can activate them. I am really sick of PG&E doing things like shutting off the power 'for our safety' when we all know it has very little to do with our safety and everything to do with keeping their equipment from starting fires.

Looks like John and I will be giving each other a TESLA Powerwall battery for Christmas. 

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