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Wednesday, December 17, 2008

A Holly Jolly State of Emergency

Well, this is indeed another moment where, like the title of this blog, the world is, in fact, very strange.

You may have heard about the recent state of emergency in New Hampshire. The ice storm that hit was fairly traumatic, my mother didn't sleep the night it hit, all she could hear was wind and trees crashing down. It was frightening purely because she was afraid she'd end up pinned beneath a fallen tree and need to go to the bathroom. Never mind the fact that she's most likely be dead (the pine trees around our house are rather impressively large) apparently the need to pee is a fear far greater than death itself.

Anyway, so that hit. That was a fun night. Lots of noise and tossing and turning. Good times. I awoke the next morning at 8:30, sure I'd overslept and my mother hadn't noticed and that any second she was going to burst into my room having seen my car still in the driveway, and demand to know why I wasn't at school, declare I'd better get to school, and give me a series of chastisements the likes of which can only be compared to Maleficent turning into the giant, fire breathing dragon at the end of Sleeping Beauty.

It got up somewhat frantically, reached for the light over on my nightstand and...

Oh. Right.

No power.

The events that followed where a saga of days, far too complex and uninteresting to detail in basic prose, therefore I now give you a TIMELINE OF MY STATE OF EMERGENCY.

Friday: My mother, sister, cats, birds, and me sit around the non-heating woodstove purchased purely to look pretty and read books. At around noon, sister goes to friend's house, mom and I get bored, we head to Newington where they have power and go out to lunch and do some Christmas shopping. I get new pair of earrings, mom gets progressively more exhausted as her lack of sleep the night before starts to hit her. We arrive at home a few hours later, and after a quick trip to get batteries and Oreos, my friend Natasha ends up at my house. We stand eating double stuff Oreos for a moment till my father, in a spectacuarly epic move, pulls up in front of my house in ambulence and declares it's time to pack up and go North, it's only going to get worse, we need to escape while we can. In response, Natasha turns to me and informs me that "This is the most epic thing that's ever happened to me..." I then remember I have a show the next day, and therefore must stay in New Hampshire, I then hang around with Natasha debating whether or not to search out a place to stay or go to the shelter, we opt to go to Amylee's where there's a woodstove, but not before we end up in Epping searching for food.

There are very few ways to describe Epping at this point. It was the only town with power in area, short of Newington, which meant that everyone and their dog was trying to get food, gas, provisions, and batteries. It was similar to one of those movies where the aliens are about to destroy the earth, and everyone's rushing through the streets to try and pick up any last minute things they may need as the world ends. It was chaos, pure utter chaos. Tasha and I end up eating Chex mix for dinner, and eventually end up playing Harry Potter Clue by candlelight at Amylee's.

Saturday: I awake at Amylee's only to discover that my father has come by to inform me that we now have power. The nice thing about living in the downtown area, people get power. Amylee is still without power, and thus begins preparations to shower at her grandparents. I wonder on the status of my show that evening, as Natasha ponders the amount of people that will be living in her house. My father is the only one home, and I soon come to the upsetting conclusion that my mom and sister will not be home in time for my show. It's ok, it's not their fault, I still have Dad. But no! He soon gets called away when a tree comes down somewhere, and the whole mess that started on Friday starts again. I go to my show anyway, forget only one of my lines, and end up on the list of people preforming at the NHTP Holiday Jubilee the next day. I invite my parents, they agree to come, and everything's dandy.

Sunday: We go to church. The service that was once going to be about the dark and cold, and the "Blessings of the Earth and Sky" has been changed to one about the word "wow". Coincidence? I think not. We then go the Holiday Jubilee, something which turns out to involve far more shmoozing and fancy clothing than I originally thought, where I meet Wine Lady. Wine Lady is a very nice older woman who seems to like my friend Eli and me, and who never seems to be without a glass of wine in her hand. She tells me I need to get out of New Hampshire, I grin at my mother, who missed the comment, and has no idea why I'm grinning. I get chinese food, and bizarrely, end up at Casey's playing Clue and Apples to Apples. How that happened, I'm still not sure.

Monday: After discovering there's no school, I decide I desperately want to see The Day The Earth Stood Still and end up dragging Natasha and Sarah. I love it, Sarah likes it, Tasha's just glad she only paid the matinee price for it. I come to the conclusion that our state's current situation is the product of a sort-of-peaceful alien trying to save the earth from humanity, I also decide I want a giant robot named Gort. We end up at Sarah's house - still running on nothing but a generator - and naturally, decide to watch Firefly.

Tuesday: There is, once again, no school. I go out to lunch with Valerie. We discuss the fact through most of this state of emergency, we've had full power and heat, which really puts a damper on the extremity of it all. She got her power back Friday afternoon, far earlier than anyone else I know. Her Dad works in some job he's not allowed to tell anyone about (I'm pretty sure he's a spy...or an assasin.) I'm sure he had some strings he pulled somewhere. After lunch I end bored at home, and partly out of desperation, and partly because I genuinly love it, I rent A Muppet Christmas Carol and watch it twice. I get a call around five from our school system alerting us that there is, in fact school tomorrow, a fact I'm almost happy about until discovering that my evil-radioactive-spider-demon-AP-Lit-teacher has apparently assigned a paper due the next day. As we missed the class she was supposed to tell us about it during, I decide to ignore it, and watch more Muppets.

You would think this would be the end of it, oh no. This is New Hampshire, nothing is as it seems.

Wendsday: I get up at five in the morning to get ready for school. I'm showered, dressed, and in the process of locating my AP Lit book when I get a call from the Automated School Board. "DUE TO CURRENT WEATHER CONDITIONS, SCHOOL WILL CLOSED WENDSDAY DECEMBER 17, 2008."

Yep. After five straight days of no school due a power killing, more annoying than terrifying ice storm, school is cancelled again due a snow storm.

I love New England.

Anyway, that's my state of emergency. No, I'm not trapped in my house freezing with no power, though I know quite a few people still are. At the moment, I'm sitting on my bed, in my pajamas, watching the snow come down through my window. Maybe later, I'll watch the Muppet Christmas Carol again. Or maybe I'll watch Doctor Who. Who knows? The day's open...again.

Gotta love natural disasters.

Happy Ice/Snow/Sleet Days,

*Nelly*