Carla Schoepfle

To start the story – you must first know that we have two sets of power lines that go across our property.  The ones that go by the front yard where we get our power and the ones that go across the back yard where the houses behind us get their power.   Because of where the poles are set – the only way to access the pole that holds up the lines in the back of our lot – it from our back yard (the other side has a garage directly blocking the pole from the other side).

So yesterday morning we were putting magnetic letters on the fridge when we heard a loud “crack” noise.  The power pole in the back yard had broken at the base and was leaning on the garage in our behind neighbor’s property.  We quickly called the power company (as probably other people did too).

Within 30 minutes the fire department had been over to take a look.  The fire truck never made it down our street.  The fire fighters had to hike it through the 2+ feet of snow on the ground.

Another hour and a half later the first person from the power company made it out.  He mentioned it was “white out” conditions on the road and it had taken him an hour to make it the mile from his last stop to our house.  He also mentioned that they were going to have to hand carry a new pole into the back yard (at this moment I was thinking a full 40 foot pole) and that we was going to need us to move our cars!!!  Please notice that there had been 2 feet on the ground from the previous weekend, and although we’d dug the cars out then – there had been another foot of snow since then.

After lunch I visited the neighbors across the street and next door to ask if we could move our cars into their driveways (one each).  I have the best neighbors as they came out to shovel their driveways (and part of our street) so we could move the cars for the power company!  We actually had to dig out our walk way so we could move the snow over enough as the mountain of snow next to the driveway was already too tall to reach the top of.

We were done shoveling by 1:30 and the power trucks were already showing up!  There were 3 boom lifts and a utility truck carrying a “temporary” 20 foot pole to sister up to the broken one.  The guys worked hard and managed to get a huge hole dug (with the biggest post hole digger I’ve ever seen), and the new pole carried back, set in place.  I was totally surprised that they used the cable TV and phone lines as their winch mount to pull the pole upright.  The guys were done by 7:30 when Ian went to bed.

Now I’m just wondering (as the sister-ing job is with 1 bolt and some rope) when the permanent pole will be put in place…..  However, we’re really lucky we had power (so hot chocolate) for the whole time!

Do Over-

So some days you have days where you wish they could just be done over.  Friday was one of those days.  First of all - I was excited because it was my birthday and we were leaving for vacation the next day.  So all the hype was there for a letdown.

As I hate coming home and having a mess - I wanted to get a few things done around the house.  But it’s almost comical about how everything that could go wrong did…

• First - It took a while to find the screwdriver and allenwrench to take apart the crib that Ian doesn’t use any more.
• Then when I started sweeping - I gashed my thumb open on the welding rods in the basement.  As the blood was dripping on the floor - I definitely needed a bandaid.  However, we were extremely low - and only had some gag bandaids left.  At least there was the duck-tape themed bandaid though. 
• Then when getting the old cat tower out to the trash - I managed to fall down the stairs.  To add insult to injury (OK - just a small scratch on my neck) I landed in wet cat litter (since I’d shaken the rugs out earlier).
• Then there was the 18 sticks of Trident in the washing machine (Luckily I found the damage before it all went in the dryer)
• Finally after 5 hours of cleaning and packing - it was time to go-to Target for some last minute supplies.  But when I get there - I search my pockets for the list.  Then I search the car.  Why would it be any of these places (since I found it after I went shopping in the recycle bin).
• But apparently everywhere in the world is out of medium size swim diapers and they only have small or large.
• After getting Ian (and forgetting the chocolate milk for the car), as Pete had asked me to not put things in the car (going to totally ignore that request in the future), Ian un-packed all the toys that I’d gathered up for the car ride.

I guess the main part of the day that makes the whole day not a do-over, was going out for a date at the nearby wine bar.  Definitely a place for a re-pete. 

So I’m really late on keeping my blog up to date… As anyone who looks at the archive list would notice. 

Pete and I recently decided to discontinue the season tickets to the Shakespeare Theater.  We were getting home kind of late – and with Ian, that made the next day (and the weekend) kind of rough.  So my folks have agreed to babysit one night a month instead of for the theater season.  So the first non-theater date was to a restaurant that called Coco-Sala a co-worker thought I’d be interested in.  All she had to mention was “chocolate” and I was definitely interested. 

So after a last minute “oh-my-god-what-should-I-wear” (so not me) dress/shoe drama (Hint: look for LBD more than a week ahead of time).   I finally found one last minute at the Macy’s around the corner.  It was not the one I’d fallen in-love with on-line, but at least it fit (where as the one on-line didn’t fit at all when it finally arrived). 

Dinner was tons of fun.  We tried lots of stuff including: Lobster Salad, Bacon Mac-and-cheese, shrimp-Mac-and-cheese, tuna-tar-tar, a plate of meat, and some cheeses (Pete ordered this instead of dessert as he is not a dessert person).  I saved room for the Aztec Experience dessert, which was definitely worth saving room for.  Pete also tried out the gelato – it was just as good as the place in Claranden (so that’s definitely good). 

And as a total bonus – after a 3 hour dinner we were still home just before 10 pm, so I still got some reasonable sleep.