— पांच हजार पांच सौ तीस —
The planned power outage last night wasn't nearly as big a challenge as our building's management company sure went out of their way to make it sound like it would be:
The buildig will be cold and dark, the notices said. They proactively hung
small flaslights for people to use should they need them—but, there were backup generator lights all over the place: in the lobbies of both buildings; in the stairwells; even in the hallways on each floor. In the end, the only reason anyone would have needed a flashlight from the lobby would have been not for getting up the stairs, but if they didn't have any at home.
This difference is also notable to me, because when we've had
unplanned outages a couple of times in the past, there were no backup generator lights. This happened once while Shobhit lived in L.A. and I was showing the guest room to a potential subletter, and I had to guide him up the staircase using the light from the screen on my phone (iPhones did not have a flashlight app at the time). There also weren't working streetlights on our block, and last night there were—evidently they just cut the power to the buildings on our block; I saw the city workers at the end of mechanical arms high above their trucks on 14th Avenue when I returned to the building last night. I should have taken a picture of that, and stupidly didn't.
As for the heat, Shobhit did turn the heat up to 72° to warm up the condo before the power was set to cut out at 7:00, which may not seem that warm to some, but he usually keeps it set in the mid-sixties. He asked me at one point if I planned to wear clothes to bed, and I said, "I haven't decided yet." It was plenty warm when I did go to bed, though, and even after a good 10 hours of no power when I woke up this morning, I felt fine in my ultimate decision to sleep with no clothes on as usual. We already have a top sheet (like civilized people), a blanket and a comforter on our bed as it is, and they worked as well as usual.
We did hope that they would finish ahead of schedule, as often happens with these things, and the power would be back on sometime in the middle of the night, before I had to get up in the morning. My phone's alarm went off as usual at 5:15, and I was disappointed to see that the power was still off. I still got up, re-lit the candle in the bathroom, and contemplated how late I might get to work this morning, and when I should email Gabby and Shelley (Noah is on PTO this week anyway) to let them know.
And then? I had kept one of the lamps in the living room turned on, just so I would see it through the balcony door windows from our bedroom if the power returned and the lamp light flickered on. That happened all of ten minutes after I got out of bed. I was like: oh. Well all right then! We're all good now.
I was slightly worried that there would not be as much supply of hot water as usual, but I had no issues taking my shower either. And even though I got started getting ready ten minutes later than usual, I made unusually good time and still didn't miss my usual bus. The biggest difference I made there was probably using pencil eyeliner instead of liquid, which takes me longer to get right.
— पांच हजार पांच सौ तीस —
— पांच हजार पांच सौ तीस —
Tracy was supposed to accompany me to the 7pm opening night screening of
Poor Things at The Egyptian Theater—strangely, SIFF seems to have gotten it a week before it's set to play at AMC, and I didn't want to wait—last night. I sent her a pretty long text around 9:00 yesterday morning, didn't hear from her all day, sent a follow-up text on my way home from work at around 5:15, and then she finally texted back:
I'm so sorry! I'm not feeling well and need to cancel last minute
Well, goddammit. I just went to see the movie by myself. It's good enough that I'll be happy to see it again if she's still interested, and even though after an unusually lengthy debate I still
settled on A-, I don't think I'll be including it on my year-end top 10 list. It's a great movie, but I didn't respond to it the same way I did Yorgos Lanthimos's other movies. Then again, I felt very much the same way at first about
The Favourite, and I seem to like that movie more each time I watch it.
It's also long: 141 minutes, which meant it was around 10:00 before I got back home. At least I was at the Egyptian, only six blocks from home, and the upside of Tracy canceling was that we didn't wind up chatting for an hour in her car before I went inside.
I had smartly made sure my Macbook laptop was fully charged before the power outage, and although there was no wifi signal in our condo, I was able to connect to the Xfinity public wifi hotspot signal, which allowed me to write up the review while sitting with the laptop in the living room.
Shobhit, who had nothing else to do without access to the TV (or even his own PC laptop, which has no battery life to speak of anymore, he's in desperate need of buying a new one), went to bed well before I did, after spending some time just snuggling with Shanti. The cats were a little bemused because our routine was so out of sync last night, and it was a very unusual situation in which all the lights were out but we were still home. It seemed to make them both slightly more affectionate than usual.
By the time I finished and posted my review, Shobhit was sound asleep, snoring in bed. I brushed my teeth by candlelight, and it was probably close to 11:30 before I got into bed myself. I got less than six hours of sleep, but I seem to be doing fine so far. I'd say I'm likely to get to bed earlier tonight, but that's up in the air given the final six episodes of
The Crown were just released on Netflix last night. So, we'll see. Shobhit is picking up an extra 5-9 shift tonight, after working 3-9 yesterday, getting home not long before I got home from the movie myself.
— पांच हजार पांच सौ तीस —
[posted 12:32 pm]
