Where did Saturday go?

MONDAY, MAY 17, 2010


Where did Saturday go?

Sometimes I miss an entire day. It must go somewhere. Maybe it is in the dryer hiding with my escaped socks. Missing a single day is not as bad as missing weeks, months or years... like when I was in college.

Last week we went for a brief visit to see the father in law before he joins the snowbirds that already made their trek north. We left for this trip on a Sunday instead of the typical Friday. I have been screwed up since. To confound things, TV shows are wrapping up their seasons. This is making things worse. Last nite (Sunday, I think) was the wrap up for Survivor. Since that show normally comes on Thursdays I am really outta whack.

Unlike migrating birds; I don’t have some mystical way to keep up with things based on the length of the days or the sun’s position in the sky, some kind of internal clock or sensitivity to earth’s magnetic field. And, since the magnetic field is moving around and may end up in the southern hemisphere; I am not waiting to start worrying about that. Will things ever get back to normal?

We had three major power outages in our historic downtown urban forest neighborhood. The first was the result of an electrical storm. We heard the transformer explode around the corner from the house. A few days later, the second time was just out of the blue. Boom, another transformer bit the dust. Then on Saturday we heard another big boom and the digital clocks stopped working. And, the lights were out again.

A huge Live Oak tree on one of our neighbor's property just broke in half and fell down. It managed to come to earth precisely between two houses. No property damage but it fell over all the transmission, cable and phone lines and managed to take out a power pole. That made three outages in seven days. We decided to cope with this by going out to a wine tasting at the local hippie food store and hoped that the power was restored before we had too much wine.  How fortunate for us that the free wine tasting on Fridays.

We went out shopping first, somewhere not in our downtown neighborhood; somewhere they could manage to keep the electricity on for more than a week at a stretch. We went to a couple of clothing stores and found nothing that did not look like it was sewn together for a hippo or a giraffe. Mostly we went shopping so we didn’t have to stand around waiting for the sommelier to uncork or unscrew the caps.


We tasted some wine after the failed attempt to stimulate the economy buying circus clothes.


But the economy did manage to get stimulated though. We bought four bottles of wine to get the free recyclable wine carrying bag we will never use again... plus all those little extras that somehow ended up in the paper bag we 'borrowed'. We had forgotten the cloth bag back at the house for the things we were not going to buy. These power outages are getting costly.

I remember coming home with just a little bit of a buzz to the cacophony of blinking digital LCD clocks. We have seven of them throughout the house because we need to know immediately and at all times precisely what time it is. A gonging grandfather clock is just not enough. All clocks except the grandfather must be reset every time the electric goes off. Grandfather has to be wound at least once a week. It never kept time properly which is just about as annoying but since it was a wedding gift we can’t throw it out.

We have taken to setting only six of the seven electric LCD clocks because no one at our residence has completed the mandatory online Electrical Engineering Degree required to set or reset the CD player with its clock in the kitchen. The kitchen is about fourteen by fourteen with just enough room for three clocks. Those three clocks in one room aren't one bit of overkill. The CD player’s clock eventually stops blinking by itself so it just continually announces what time it is in relation to what time it would be if the power outage had ended at midnite or noon, plus whatever buffer it allows for resetting before it stops the incessant blinking. At nite one could perform surgery in front of its blue and off white illumination dial.

Conveniently, it will also notify you if you put a CD in it with yet another light. I can never get the stove clock and the microwave clock above it to display the same time, no matter how hard I try. Synchronizing that third clock would be torture. Trying always makes me think of a fifties war movie with an entire battalion of men setting their watches to fourteen hundred.

So here comes the Rant: How come these wonders of modern technology don't have rechargeable battery backups for these kinds of emergencies. More importantly: Is it required that every appliance has its own clock, and why is it that every electric or electronic device in the house has to give notification of its presence by LED lights that never shut off.

Except by unplugging the devices, not a single one of them has any way to turn off those darn LED lights. Do I really need announcement that my cell phone is being charged because the panel is lit up and the red charging light is blinking? Congress ought to pass a law that if something consumes electricity there must be some way to continue to use it without having to see a red, white, blue, green or yellow plastic lens illuminated and informing you that it is plugged in or working.

Maybe it is a safety measure! I need to know that the charger for the cell phone is plugged in because it would be a liability problem for the cell phone manufacturer if I tripped over the cord in the dark.

I am not sure I could find my portable computer if it did not have at least four LED's lit when it is in hibernation and plugged in. Looking at it right now as I type I see the brand logo on the hand rest illuminated, as is the wireless network notification light. My NUM LOCK LED is also on as are the ON/OFF button, seven mysterious command touch areas under the monitor, the electric plug light and the other ON LED, BATTERY and of course the blinking HD light to the right of my touch pad. I almost forgot the CAPS LOCK LED notification light that comes on to remind me that I am typing in CAPS, when I am. I guess I wouldn't notice all of those capital letters constantly showing up on the monitor. Even God does not know how many illuminated lights it would have if it was not Energy Star compliant.

I am proposing that on every electrical or electronic device that has LED lights that there is a master switch or setup option that allows for the lights to be shut off if desired. When congress passes this much needed bill I can get to sleep without having to cover the cell phone with a towel and we could save enough electricity to keep the transformers from spontaneously imploding. The bill and instructions on how to select the all LED Lights off option should be in plain English. Google can provide the necessary translation if necessary.

An Electrical Engineering Degree should not be required to push the switch or set the preferences. We could then afford to put the power, phone or cable utilities underground so our historic urban forest neighborhood would not have the spaghetti hanging between telephone poles all over the place. We could also then figure out a way to transmit all of these services over satellites or towers so we can increase the subsequent cancer rates. Then, we can take advantage of the mandatory health insurance we will soon benefit from.

My brain is already being scrambled from all these microwaves flying around. At my age I can’t afford to lose another cell. Will things ever get back to normal? Maybe even worse; is this normal?

Wait, I thought yesterday helped clear my mind.