Today was a strange and unpleasant experience. On what will possibly be known as the coldest spell of the year, I awoke today to a frigid house, snowed in, and without power.

It was fantastic in a sense to realize how deeply I had become complacent about my energy dependency. All of the sudden, things got really hard without heat, light, transportation, or entertainment. Our neighbors next door still had power, so it was particularly striking to appreciate how hamstrung we were by this invisible force.

Just at the edge of defeat (sleep), at about 11:50 tonight (after 16 hours), our power was restored.

There’s at least 6 inches on the ground right now. I’ve never seen anything like it in my 13 years living here. The snow continues to fall, late at night. We’ll be lucky to wake up tomorrow and still have power.

The good:

• Celebrating Hanukkah took on whole new meanings with the power out. It would have been a real miracle if my batteries lasted for 8 days too…
• I had thought to charge and stock my iPod last night in case such an event did occur.  This turned out to be so comforting with little else to do. Channel Frederator, YLNT, Rocketboom, and TED were all there for me in my time of need.
• Scrabble is remarkably fun when there’s nothing else to do.
• It got dark early, and there was practically nothing to do after that, so I actually felt tired as the daylight ebbed.

The bad:

• Hearing the deep booms of tree parts falling off in the night (my house is surrounded by huge pines). Terrifying!
• Trying to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah in a pitch-dark, freezing house.
• The smoke detector went off several times. Our fireplace is poorly done, and has an annoying tendency to smoke up the house.

The ugly:

• A smoke detector went off again the moment our power returned and the heater kicked in — apparently there was still some smoke around that got recirculated.
• Seeing our neighbors’ Christmas lights on next door. We live on a boundary of service. The folks next door have buried lines, while we have aerials.
• Watching the PGE guys make at least 7 attempts to drive up our hill in their gigantic, schoolbus-sized repairs truck. It was surreal to see them make running starts and slowly slide back down the hill.