Boom Boom!!!

Or perhaps more aptly, "puff fizzle....sigh*.

But regardless of the dramatic explosion or lack thereof, Redoubt finally erupted. After weeks of hoo haw and gossiping hullabaloo, the volcano actually honest to god truly went off last night. Five times!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29837941

We happened to get up early this morning to make a much anticipated (ha ha) trip to the DMV. But at about 8am, the power went out, and with it any chance of being first in line. Drat.

With no power comes no internet, which is our go-to source for news. We peeked into our slowly warming refrigerator and the results were uninspiring. So we joined the masses and jumped in the car to see what we could see. On our list of things to do: find other “survivors” and interrogate them for information, and forage for sustenance and ash-masks.

One fun part about the power outage is that traffic lights stop functioning. And we know that Americans in general have a problem driving at the best of times, but without someone telling us where to go and when to stop, things get really hairy. Common sense would say that all lights become four-way stops in the event of malfunction. However, about 1/3 of the population think that a lack of lights means they personally have the right of way, everywhere. Awesome! So while 2/3rds of us creep up to the intersection in meekness and fear that ballsey 1/3rd blows right through at 40 miles an hour.

Don’t worry mom, we wore our seatbelts and waited past our turn. Onwards to a grocery store. But alas, grocery stores have this funny habit of using those fancy automatic doors… which do not open without power. Lucky for us, Freddy’s was smart enough to include some regular, old fashioned doors on hinges! And enough of a backup generator to provide meager lights and run the card swipers. Phew.

Something we noticed while buying last minute jugs of water and produce: everything looks much nicer under the emergency low lighting. They should try it all the time. Save on power too. Also, with the threat of no refrigeration, everything fresh is on sale! Hurray for $1.25 mushrooms! Hurray for .98 cents a lb oranges! Hurrah and well done to the $1.50 gallon of milk!

So we drove, we shopped, we saved and conquered. All before most of the town was even awake. We learned from fellow shoppers that the power outage was weirdly enough unrelated to the volcano, and that electricity was supposed to return at 10 am. We got while the getting was good with our discount produce, ate cold chicken for breakfast and cheered quietly when the lights did flicker on.

But I took a bath, just in case, and there are now ash-masks in the car (you can relax mom and dad, as Oliver put it, “he provided for your little girl”) and water jugs in the kitchen. Along with those oranges, mushrooms, and milk. When the ash starts to fall or the sky is clear enough to get pictures, I’ll update again.

Cheers!

*PS* ash-masks. Try saying that one four times fast. Ash-masks, ash-makes, ack-mashs, ash-mash!