Sometimes, you have to leave, Part II

When we last left Cookie, that is I, was telling you about poor Merry Mary and how she had to go to Africa. To forget.

She didn't have to walk a block up to UDF and buy a pint of ice cream.  No, she had to to go to Africa.  To forget.   Which is a very Victorian thing for a liberated woman to do.

Sometimes, all of us get to a point where you have to get out, see something new, go someplace safe.  Sometimes the world squeezes and squeezes and you have to let the safety valve do its job.

WELL, we had this windstorm last Friday, and it was a doozie.

It was not a typical Nor'Easter, aka Bombogenesis.  It was a Super Bombogenesis event.   Two low-pressure cells, one headed east and the other - over the Atlantic - heading north converged and the result was would deliver a real blizzard.  But the Mid-Atlantic was too warm, so what got was more akin to a dry hurricane.

It was terrific wind storm with 50-70mph gusts over an extended time range.  It started at noon and the power was up and down all afternoon, with transformers going off like a cannon.  All that was missing was Alfalfa doing his "Charge of the Light Brigade" recitation.

By 4:45 the rain had stopped, and the house was a rocking and Cookie needed a shower.   So I hop in and as I am going through final rinse two unrelated things happened:

1) The power went out with a cannon blast, and it wasn't one of those sounds that tell you it's coming back very soon;

2) This was followed an earth-shaking boom and metal.

The two were unrelated.

Number 2 was a large Sycamore that snapped off at the ground and fell on a car almost killing a woman driving up the road.

Number 1 was our power grid going down for the NINTH time in three years with a protracted outage.

So, I call the husband to warn him about the tree on the car - the woman was fine, the car totaled, the street blocked - and to tell him that the power was out.

Now mind you, the NINTH time in this house and without power, Cookie begins to panic like someone panics when they are in an elevator that is stuck between floors and the cables are snapping.  Power means connectivity and without connectivity, we have no cell service, no computers, no lights and no heat.  Add to that trees falling everywhere.

So when I tell him the power is out, and he knows that my nerves are frayed from an afternoon in this creaky old house, he responded in a very logical, measured New England "I'm sorry."

I am flipping out in the middle of a dry hurricane and I get "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry" works when you drop a plate and it breaks.  "I'm sorry" works when you say something that ruffles a feather.  I'm sorry works when little shit happens.   But a prolonged power outage?  No, that's when you say "What do we need to do."

I'm sorry is what the clerk at Tim Hortons says when they are out of the Maple Bacon donut you were craving.

But when your spouse is having a full-on panic attack, "I'm sorry" doesn't work.

I hang up, and my nerves go up exponentially, the situation is getting worse, not better and I suffer a flight response.

I called the husband, put on a coat, grabbed my keys and iPad and said when he answered "For five years I have lived with constant, long power outages, and every time I want to do something about them, you say you're sorry.  I can't do this anymore. I can't stay here.  I'm leaving."

And the Husband, who loves me dearly and is blindsided trips over his words and says "where are you going?"

"Maybe I will call you when I get there," was my response.

There is only so far that Cookie can bend when pushed up against the wall.   But now I was climbing over that wall and I needed my own Africa, so I left our house. I had no idea where I was going, but I was going in that direction.  Traffic lights were down, driving chaos abounded because drivers in Baltimore don't know that a dead traffic signal is treated as a four-way stop.

And finally, I got someplace.  I handed the keys to the valet. and walked through the doors of the only place open with power.

Mary may have gone to Africa. To forget.

But Cookie went to P.F. Chang's. To forget.  And calm the fuck down.

I got a booth and I lost it.

To cope, the server said, can I get you anything and I ordered a Diet Coke with a water. The hard stuff.  Booze is not going to help anyone in my mindset.  She brought extra napkins.

I remind myself that there are places on earth where people would be happy to sit in our dark house and not complain.  This is my issue, my problem and in the greater scheme of things, I am being a total pussy.  But, this is my crisis, internally and externally.

I sat and thought about all the time I had said we needed to get a generator for the house - because the power doesn't just go down in the neighborhood.  It goes on a vacation.  It can be three hours, it can be three weeks.  And between both houses, we are looking at 15+ times in five years, nine of which have been in the past two and a half.

And the power company is of absolutely no help what so ever.

Honest to God, these people know nothing.

"Use our app to report your outage!" they suggest.  How the Hell are we supposed to use the fucking app when we have no wifi, and no cell service?

"Check our outage map!" Kind of hard to do when the map has a huge banner across it that reads "Due to high demand, our website is unable to handle your request."

You call their customer service and are told: "You may expect a longer than average wait time."  When you do get a human being, they know nothing.  "If you see a crew in your neighborhood ask them.  They are more informed than we are in the call center. Sorry."

So I am sitting there and the phone rings, its the Husband who tells me he's arrived home, the dogs are fine and walked.  "When are you coming home?"

And I tell him I don't know.  Because I don't.

"Can I come to you?"

Yes.

So I tell him where I am and he arrives and we sit in a booth and we communicate.

In 22 years we've had one fight, and that night we were not going to have the second.

He hears me out and agrees, it has to be dealt with.  "That house is really dark."

Cookie has never asked for a new Lexus, a trip to Europe.  I have never demanded a Wolfe range.  I have never gone out and spent thousands of dollar on clothes.  Ever major expenditure has to weighed and looked at.  I don't drink, and I don't smoke and I don't gamble.  I also don't sleep around.

He acknowledges that.  And my isolation working out of the house as I do.

We agree on a whole house generator only after I contact a real estate agent and confirm that it would be a plus when we decide to sell the house.

We also agreed on getting rid of a couple trees and drain the backyard which floods.  And then plant the right trees in the right places.

And then we eat and hold hands.

Because at the end of the day, all either of us wants is to be with each other, at home, with a light on to read by or play a game of Scrabble.  To curl up in our bed, to sleep and wake and begin another day together.  We could do it in a trailer, we can do it in a studio apartment. It doesn't have to be fancy.  We just need to be together.

But during the day, when he goes to work, I need electric.  And now the Husband understands that this really is a thing, and we both see the light at the end of the tunnel.

And we leave my Africa together, we came home and went to bed in the pitch blackness.  The next morning it is 42 degrees in the house and the Husband says "Yeah, this has to stop."

By the time the power comes back on, we are rejoicing.

And our plans are moving forward, as we move forward.

Sometimes you have to leave home in order to go back home. Together.