What saved me from Brownout Boredom

It started Tuesday night, around 11:30 p.m., I was watching TV as usual, when the electricity went out. I knew that there was a storm coming (Basyang) but I didn’t expect that electricity would be cut off because it wasn’t evident yet.

When it hit Manila, it surely was one hell of a storm. You can really hear the wind, it was so loud and so strong. I was awake for about 2 hours ‘til I fell asleep. I wake up the next morning and found the car inside the garage drenched, seems like it got into a muddy, leafy carwash. Everyone was trying to clean up the mess.

I was waiting (so patiently-sarcastic tone) for the lights to turn on, but the electricity was still out and it continued ‘til the next day. I was so bummed because the houses along our street, before the bridge have their lights on already. And we had to wait for another 18 hours. It was from 11:30, Tuesday night ‘til 2 pm of Thursday. All in all, it was almost 40 hours, and I didn’t expect that at all.

So what saved me from brownout boredom?

1. Maddee - my puppy who’s 7 months now. She loves to sleep but when she’s awake, she’s always on hyper-mode. She and the other dogs kept me sane.

2. My sister’s Ipod. It saved me from hours of “got nothing to do ‘cause there’s no electricity” time. And it helped me sleep because I always have the TV on sleep mode, and that’s the only alternative.

3. Mom’s cellphone. Both of my phones failed me, they died just when I needed them. Good thing, my mom let me borrow her cellphone. I was praying that it had initial charge because it was still new, it’s still in the box. It lasted ‘til the electricity got back.

4. Emergency light. It actually saved me more from the darkness. I hate it, I’m afraid of the dark. But I enjoyed having it around, because every time I switched it to flashlight mode, Maddee tries to catch the light until she gets tired. Haha. Saved me from a few minutes of staring into space.

5. Cross-stitch. Haha. I know. So I bought this cross-stitch packet last week, and good thing it came handy during the day.

6. Piano. When the electricity’s out and Ipod’s out, you know you can always count on your good ol’ piano to make music. Guitars count too.

7. Eclipse. I read a few chapters that I liked. I love the story and of course, the love triangle (cheezy) and it saved me for hours.

8. Jo - one of my best friends since grade school. We haven’t spoken for 3 years and he called me last Wednesday night and it was so fun catching up. We reminisced about good old times and of course, dishing out on the love life.

There you go. I’ll probably keep them handy for the next storm, if the electricity will be cut off again, hope it won’t be that long next time.

MB
07.15.2010
19:00