ideaphoria

NAME THAT STORM

Some are calling it the Hanukkah Storm; some are calling it The Rattle that Rocked Seattle. Chez Campbell, we call it the Wedding Anniversary Storm.

Long-time readers of my blog will recall that in years past Scott and I have gone out for a fancy dinner and stayed overnight in a hotel to celebrate our anniversary, and usually thrown in a round of Christmas shopping for good measure. This year, though, we had so many holiday activities already on the calendar that it felt overwhelming to try to add in one more night out. So we planned to have our special dinner at home, and our daughter Allegra would be with us. Our oldest daughter, Jennie, on the other hand, had plans for a first date.

The storm kicked in in the late afternoon, and our power went out at about 5:15 PM. Scott called me to ask, "Should I stop on the way home and get you an anniversary card? You usually get me a card."

I told him no, I was more concerned that he get home quickly and build a fire. When he got home, he was a blaze of actiivity. The first thing he did was to locate the battery-operated boom box and get it filled with fresh D-cell batteries, so that he could listen to the Seahawks game. So our priorities were a little different.

Eventually the fire got built, the king salmon got barbecued (we enjoyed it with a pear-walnut-cranberry salad, rice, and asparagus). Jennie's date showed up, despite having to detour around fallen trees that had closed some nearby roads, and they went out for dinner.

Just as we were about to sit down to dinner, Scott made a big show of bringing in some presents from the car -- but then set them at his place at the table. When I peeked at the tags, I saw that one box was from one of his vendors, the other was from the bank where he does his commercial banking. Well, two can play that game, I thought, and I pulled out the box that Jewel had sent me, and set it at my place. It goes without saying that it was fun to open up all of these goodies, by candlelight. I gave Scott an anniversary card and a bottle of champagne. He gave me an aerial photo of our place in the San Juan Islands -- blown up, framed, and ready to hang on the wall.

In all, our power was out for 5-1/2 days; it was restored at 7:30 yesterday (Wednesday) morning. Because the electricity never went out at Scott's office, I was able to go there and use a computer to check on orders coming in to the Two Swans website; I was able to hand-write address labels and I continued to ship out yarn to my customers.

Posted by Karen at December 21, 2006 10:27 AM