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My Profile
Fairytales for a Practical Princess - 2008-11-30
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9:37 a.m. - 2003-08-16
The recent power outage was interesting. On the larger view it was awful and scary and dangerous. As always when the power goes out I think of the hospitals first. I pray that each and every one of them has the right generators and no one bleeds out because the power quit while they were getting a new kidney. Next I think of the other care facilities, hospices and nursing homes and how I hope they have back up power of some sort. I can't get this picture out of my head of old people flopping and gasping like fish on a riverbank because there's no juice to run their respirators and oxygen supplies. I was telling Bobbi this yesterday and she said she always thinks of the people in the dental chair. Surely in a power failure so sweeping there were people mid-way through fillings and gum surgery, and dentists probably don't have back-up juice as hospitals do. Ouchie. Speaking of back-up juice, this will make you laugh. Bobbi, realizing the power was going to be off for more than a blip, cleverly tapped into the emergency power pack for her computer to mix up a blender-ful of strawberry margaritas. It’d never occur to me to plug my Osterizer into my Compaq. So while the rest of the Northeast was at best sipping warm beer, my friend and her hubby were kicked back with some frothy fruity tequila goodness. Resourceful little minx, ain’t she? Here at Casa Sage we weren’t too badly off either. In fact it truly came home to us how awesomely fit we are to survive after Armageddon. It’s not like we’re survivalist nutballs or anything, it’s just that happenstance has given us a unique leg-up on taking care of our basic needs if the whole world went to Hell. Because of the work he does Mike has a big ass generator. Working mostly new construction, the generator is a necessity to run his power tools as most sites don’t have the power hooked up yet. Also his welders are nothing but fancy generators, so as long as he could scrounge enough gas to keep them running, we’d have electricity aplenty. After the power was off for a while on Thursday, the first thing Mike did was to start one of the generators and get the fridge running again. The freezer meat was safe and the boys would have milk for their Rice Krispies no matter what. Sanitation wouldn’t be a big problem either. We have a well. When Mike saw the power was going to be off for some time, he trotted down to the cellar and spliced the power line for the well pump into the line from the generator. We had tap water and flushing toilets while millions of others were breaking out the Evian and frantically looking for a Port-o-John. While this didn’t come up on Thursday, this house has 6 fireplaces. We also have two wood stoves, one with pot lids to cook on if needed. So heat and food prep are taken care of in a post-apocalypse world. The wood lot at the back of the east pasture was our source when we had a fling in the 90’s heating this house with wood, and it would be again. Mike and I talked about what we’d do first after the Big One fell and all the governments around the world were nothing but glowing dust. If we had to make it on our own and the only law left was the survival of the fittest. I told him I’d loot the pharmacies. Lay in a huge supply of antibiotics and pain medications. I’d also gather every box of maxi-pads and tampons I could put my hands on. Mike nodded approvingly and said that while I was doing that he’d be hauling diesel and gasoline back to the house. We have fuel storage for 1,600 gallons. (You wouldn’t believe how much it’s cost us to heat this place, that first 1,600 gallons of fuel oil we buy every summer only get us as far as New Year’s.) We wouldn’t be using the fuel for heat, see the above, but the generators and the vehicles would need go-juice. Food would be the next thing. Canned and dry goods, of course, but seed as well. And livestock enough to propagate and be an adequate source of steaks and eggs. I don’t know doodlysquat about animal husbandry, but I think I’d learn right quick. Wouldn’t you? Of course this rosy utopian vision became sad and scary when we thought of having to protect our hard scrounged largesse and comfortable home from those who had only one survival skill, theft. We don’t own a gun. We won’t have one in the house. Guns and children don’t mix. Spare me the NRA propaganda, please. I know there are lots of responsible gun owning parents out there. We don’t have guns because we just don’t need them. Neither of us hunt and the idea of a hand gun for “protection” is absurd. To properly protect curious kids the gun would have to be unloaded and locked up, with the ammo locked in a different place. By the time one of us could find, unlock, and load a pistol the burglar would be halfway to Totowa NJ with our stuff or we’d be stone dead from being killed while we fumbled with the key to the gun cabinet. When it comes to home protection both Mike and I have agreed the best choice is something large and heavy. A couple good raps with a Louisville Slugger would make it quite clear to even a determined burglar that we prefer our stuff to stay where it is and he isn’t getting any. But we agreed that in a Road Warrior type situation that maybe some firepower would be good to have. My SIL called from work yesterday to check on us. She had had power throughout and wondered how we had gotten on during the black-out. We spoke of the whole survival thing and she said she’d just kill herself. She has NO practical skills whatsoever. A couple weeks of world-wide anarchy and she’d be nothing but a skeleton stumbling along hopelessly looking for a place to plug in her Powerbook. So what about you guys? Think you’d do okay in world without utilities and law? ~LA Today’s Pick: “Eve of Destruction” by Barry McGuire
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