A Strange Sort of Luck

It's been raining today. A lot. Windy, too. Biking into work today, I felt like a salmon swimming upstream.

So instead of risking biking home in the dark and (at the time) pouring rain, flata and I took a cab out to eat, and then another cab home. At dinner I'd been reading off statistics about the homes without power - 30,000 in Daly City, 11,000 in Pacifica. The list went on and on. It mentioned "scattered cities and towns" elsewhere but I didn't see Menlo Park/Palo Alto on the list.

So we caught our second cab. The driver was a bit lost - apparently he was a San Franciscan a long way from home. I imagined he had been blown here by the storm, lost and slowly finding his way back home. He missed our intersection, and I saw an eerie red glow from road flares. Bad sign. As we took a sharp u-turn back into the intersection, flata pointed out that the lights towards my apartment were all out. Another bad sign. So I grimaced and we continued onward. The power was out in most of the homes along the way, but there were odd lights here and there that were working. The deli, while closed, had power. The gas station near my place didn't. We couldn't see any lights on my street, but we turned onto it anyway and I felt the slow creep of fear. Would there be power? Would I have to face the dark tonight?

Finally, we approached my block and saw...could it be?...yes, power! Glorious yellow sodium lights beaming down their own harsh concept of safety. Normally that kind of light bothers me, but I gladly accepted it this time. As we walked towards my apartment, flata commented that I had "the strangest sort of luck". But I don't mind. I'm just happy to have heat, and light, and internet, and someone willing to keep me safe even in the dark.

A Strange Sort of Luck

It's been raining today. A lot. Windy, too. Biking into work today, I felt like a salmon swimming upstream.

So instead of risking biking home in the dark and (at the time) pouring rain, flata and I took a cab out to eat, and then another cab home. At dinner I'd been reading off statistics about the homes without power - 30,000 in Daly City, 11,000 in Pacifica. The list went on and on. It mentioned "scattered cities and towns" elsewhere but I didn't see Menlo Park/Palo Alto on the list.

So we caught our second cab. The driver was a bit lost - apparently he was a San Franciscan a long way from home. I imagined he had been blown here by the storm, lost and slowly finding his way back home. He missed our intersection, and I saw an eerie red glow from road flares. Bad sign. As we took a sharp u-turn back into the intersection, flata pointed out that the lights towards my apartment were all out. Another bad sign. So I grimaced and we continued onward. The power was out in most of the homes along the way, but there were odd lights here and there that were working. The deli, while closed, had power. The gas station near my place didn't. We couldn't see any lights on my street, but we turned onto it anyway and I felt the slow creep of fear. Would there be power? Would I have to face the dark tonight?

Finally, we approached my block and saw...could it be?...yes, power! Glorious yellow sodium lights beaming down their own harsh concept of safety. Normally that kind of light bothers me, but I gladly accepted it this time. As we walked towards my apartment, flata commented that I had "the strangest sort of luck". But I don't mind. I'm just happy to have heat, and light, and internet, and someone willing to keep me safe even in the dark.