I'm catching my breath after last week's ordeal. Here's my tappings, gentle tappings, on my keyboard.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
I am sitting in the dark on a Sunday evening with no power, no television, no air conditioning, NO INTERNET, and no refrigeration for white wine or rosé. I can't tweet my sweaty status or update my Facebook page. Somewhere in the darkness, my dog is noisily licking his paws - electricity or no, he must keep his toilet. My 10- year old daughter is camped on the family room floor, making an adventure of necessity with a flashlight and a magazine. My wife has given up and gone to bed. The fierce storms that ripped through the DC area this afternoon left hundreds of thousands without electricity, killed at least two people, and damaged homes and cars throughout the region. Without warning, we were plunged back in time forty years to an era without electricity, when we opened windows despite the heat and humidity. It is small comfort now that the temperature has fallen into the nineties. I can hear the generator from the office building a block away thrumming over the sing song of summer cicadas and the wail of sirens responding to distant emergencies. The neighbor's dogs are barking at Armegeddon. In times like these, I am grateful for my family and friends, and content to drink water.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Day Two. Or Night Two, rather, without power. Crews are presumably still working hard to restore the grid, but from what I was able to see today as I drove to and from work, they have a heroic job ahead of them. Aside from the obvious carnage - a house up the street clobbered by a split oak tree, my mother-in-law's car pierced by a fallen branch - there is the not so obvious damage: trees broken but not quite fallen, their heavy branches weighing down power lines that could easily ignite when the juice is restored. I'm still very thankful that our only real cost will be some ruined food in the freezer. But much of it was in the freezer because we didn't really want to eat it anyway. Now, however, I'm beginning to chafe for the wine on the basement that is gradually getting warmer. The weather is too hot for red wines, and we can't chill the whites or rosés. I'm grateful that this is the weightiest of my worries.
Tuesday, July 27
Still no power at our house, though some people in our neighborhood have had theirs restored. We ate this evening at my mother-in-law's house in Wheaton. She never lost power, but it was only late today that a crew from Philadelphia came by to lift her sagging power cable off her car and from over the street. Her bumper has a nasty hole in it, the fender is popped off, the trunk dented and scratched, but the car is still driveable. The offending branches are now sawed into neat chunks, their twigs and leaves scattered across the lawn and driveway. A block away, two streets are without power. One of them is blocked by a massive oak tree that fell across the street; police tape keeps the curious away from the downed power lines until the crews arrive.
As we ate sausages and pizza that Lily had rescued from our freezer, I kept hearing Ma's air conditioning cycling on and off, but I didn't feel any relief from it. "She has it set at 80 degrees," my wife explained. That's the same temperature as our powerless house, though at least the fans move the air around a bit. Still, it makes it easier for me to decline Ma's offer to stay over tonight. Eating here, at least we were able to enjoy some cold wine. (This is a wine blog, after all.) Macon, good summer chardonnay. But I can't motivate myself to write much about about it. In the grand scheme of things, it's just wine after all.
We came home as darkness fell, with just enough time to run through the house looking for where we left our flashlights this morning. There's still hot water for our showers. But I can't get used to this. I reflexively pull the string on the light in my closet and flick the switch whenever I enter the bathroom or go down to the basement to look at the wine as it slowly cooks.
The basement is still the coolest part of the house, but barely. I pulled out a bottle of Carneros Pinot noir, an unsolicited sample, to sip as I write this. It is candied and rich, not my favorite style, but I can see why people might like it. It has sweet strawberry jam flavors and goes well with mint toothpaste. Part of me really wants to check Twitter to see if there is any more ruckus about local wine in locavore restaurants. But the rest of me just wants to go to bed.
Wednesday, July 28
Dinner out was a treat, as I was able to brag on my "hardship" about being without power. But it really is getting tiring. Driving home tonight and arriving to a dark neighborhood was depresssing. But crews were setting out traffic cones to block off two lanes of Route 29 as I came up, so there is hope.
3:34 am, Thursday, July 29
Lily and I sat up bolt upright as the power came back on. Suddenly we heard our own air conditioner rather than someone else's generator. We rushed throughout the house closing windows and turning off lights. Then we went back to bed and pulled the covers up, confident that life was returning to normal.
Note to self: Chill some Champagne.
You raise one of the great metaphysical weather questions of our time. What's worse? Having the power go out when it's winter or summer?
Posted by: Jeff Siegel | August 02, 2010 at 07:21 AM
Dave:
Any idea what temperature your bottles peaked at? When you gain the courage to open one, I'd suggest as worst-case sample a bottle of a delicate pinot noir with some age on it. This is generally my experience as the most sensitive to heat. Also, oddly, any run-of-the-mill zin. Heartier-style zins usually age and hold up well to heat, but your average Dry Creek brambly-spiced, medium-weight zin relies on fruit alone for beauty and can fade pretty quickly. Hope it all turns out OK. And welcome back to civilization!
Posted by: Allen Clark | August 02, 2010 at 08:59 AM
I did not keep a thermometer in the basement, but the room remained the coolest in the house throughout. And of course, the recessed lights in the ceiling werent warming it up. I am pretty confident, based on my tastings over the weekend, that the wines fared OK.
Posted by: Dave McIntyre | August 02, 2010 at 01:28 PM