Mary Bellamy

I returned home on Tuesday at around 1 p.m. Tree still on lines, no electricity. With a heavy heart, I dialed GVEA (again) and asked in a small voice if it might be possible to maybe get electricity back perhaps by Wednesday. The man on the line said he'd look into it and asked for my address. When he told me he also lived on Goldhill Road, I said, Well, Roger, can I come over to your place for dinner? Because I haven't eaten at home for a few days. He laughed, and said we'd probably have power back later that afternoon.

I tried to distract myself with cabin painting, but hunger began to gnaw at my stomach. My master weight-control plan is to only buy food components, with the idea that I won't snack if I have to cook something. This plan was working against my current situation. In desperation, I rooted through James' section in the main cabin and found some pilot bread, which I ate. You have to be pretty desperate to eat pilot bread.

Finally, at 3:08 p.m., more than 48 hours after we lost power, GVEA took down the tree and restored our power. About 15 seconds after the power came back on, thunder rumbled across the sky. Always polite, I yelled Thank you!!! over my shoulder as I ran to the building site to cover the stacks of plywood and move the painted boards to a covered area.

I believe I watched lots of TV last night, just because I could. I may have also turned on lots of lights, used a space heater or two, and used an electric pencil sharpener to fine-tune my collection of writing implements, but I'll never tell.