well it has been a crazy coulpe of weeks here in this sleepy little town in this wild southwest corner of Missouri. We haven't been traveling much, which has been nice. I actually feel like I've had a normal scedule recently which has afforded me some luxuries which I have not enjoyed in a while (the main one going to church two weeks in a row). I know it's crazy!
The weather continues to be a mystery to me around here. It can be such opposites, and not just day to day or week to week, but from hour to hour. Sometimes the highs of the day are in the morning. That's right, the high for the day can be at 8:00 am. What is that all about? I just don't get it. It's not like that in California where I'm from.
We had an ice storm come through about a week and a half ago which knocked out power for, what I've heard, hundreds of thousands of people in our neck of the woods. Of course I was one of these such people. So were many of my friends. People were huddling together at the few lucky people's houses that did still have power. It was a big slumber party for a couple of days. Which was kind of a cool thing. Friends all hanging out, enjoying each others company. Here is an observation I have made. I'll give two examples; 1) "Hey we all need to hang out sometime! We should get together at my house on Friday night and we'll do something". 2) "I still don't have power at my house yet." "Oh you can come stay at my house, it will be fun"
Okay, in one way these are the same because the end result is people hanging out together enjoying each others company (hopefully). But they are totally different because of the way you get there, which causes a totally different dynamic.
In situation #1 there are certain expectations from both the host and the invited parties. There is an "entertainment factor" involved for the host and the invited doesn't necessarly feel like it's their responsiblity to make a decision on what everyone should do. Either way no one wants to decide what everyone is going to do becuase they don't want to be the reason why no one is having a good time. It can be a lot of pressure for the host and a difficult situation for the invited.
But when you come together because of reasons such as a lack of power, combined with the idea that you are spending the night, the "entertainment factor" for the host mysteriously disappears and the invited feels as if they are helping make a morgage payment and feels comfortable helping make a decisions. While the circumstanses in which you are all together in one house (all sharing the same bathroom) are some what unfortunate, it is really one of the best situations to be in. Friends are all together having a good time without a care in the world, just enjoying each other's company.
So this is my suggestion, any time you are going over to a friends house, go with the mindset that you have no power and you are going to be spending the night. The same goes for those having people over. Think of them as unfortunate souls that just need a warm place to stay and you don't have to entertain them. Giving them heat and hot water is comfort enough for them.
This is a picture of Teri's house. All the houses around here had power, but one of the branches from her tree in the back yard fell on her power line. That happened last monday and it finally got fixed yesterday! I was also without power from last Sunday till Monday. Because I got my power back before Teri, Harley, her cat, stayed at my house the other night because she needed a warm place to stay.
Needless to say the rules I mentioned above do not relate to cats! It was just about the worst night of sleep I have ever had (excluding the month my freshmen year of college that I had mono). If you don't know anything about cats, they spend most of their day sleeping and spend most of the night awake, walking around, playing, scratching their liter box, scratching ever wall, pulling down my Ohio State Flag, walking around on my bed, meowing, and just keeping me up. So thanks to Empire Electric for finally getting Teri's power back on because I had a great night of sleep last night, I hardly remember getting into bed.
One last thing, we had a successful video shoot for SuperStart last week. We were worried about no power and not having enough time and other factors. It didn't all happened the way we were planning on, but it happen probably better then we planned. We were done a couple days faster then we thought. It was amazing!