Uncle!

That distant screaming you heard this morning was me yelling, "Are you fucking kidding me?" as our power went off at 6:10 a.m., for no apparent reason. It was not windy. It was not raining. In fact, when I left for work, only my half of the street was out. Fortunately I've become quite adept at getting ready for work with a flashlight, and Brian can disengage the garage door mechanism in a flash, and in the dark, so I can get my car out. But if this is any indication of how the rest of my week is going to go, then I'm bumming hard.

"But you just got a new generator," you say. Yes, but it's only one-third hooked up. We are still waiting for the guy to call us to run the natural gas line, then after that, the "authorized" Kohler representative has to come out and do the "official" start up (to the tune of $430.00 Clearly, I am in the wrong line of work).

Since late October, 2006, the residents of the Pacific NW have gone the full 15 rounds with Ma Nature and I'm fed up. I'm crying "UNCLE", throwing in the towel, waving the white flag. We've had biting cold (late October), followed by torrential rains and catastrophic flooding (first week of November). Then came colder rains with wind in mid-November with a short power outage. After that, we had the snow and ice that crippled the region from Bellingham in the north to Chehalis in the south. More rain, leading up to our 100 Year Windstorm followed by freezing cold. Then some more snow and rain thrown in for good measure, and yesterday it was windy and the heavy rain was blowing sideways. The current forecast is for more snow flurries by Wed., and then clear but freezing cold weather for about a week.

I don't mind the rain. I don't mind the little bit of snow. I don't mind the cold. Normally, I don't even mind when the power goes out because I know it'll be back on soon, and for all I know, it's already on. But this winter has been all over the map. I'm not saying that I'd prefer to be in the Northeast where the temps have been in the high 60's, but I can live without the nonstop devastating storms. This was supposed to be an "El Nino" year, which means warm, dry winters up here, like in 2005. I'd just like a happy medium!