14 hours of fun

Storms are great fun so long as nothing bad happens. (yeah, I know, that's real original. Most things are great so long as nothing bad happens)

Anyway, we lost power about 4 yesterday, and it didn't return until about 6:30 this morning. It was fun playing cards with Brad and Kelly by candlelight, and McChickens are always classed up in the dimmed light, but I did miss my computer. It got a little warm after a few hours (we're on the third floor, so all the heat drifts up to us) so Jodi wanted to grab some ice cream. Well there was this incredibly chatty artsy chick, brunette hair slightly astray, who Went to Webster working there at Ben & Jerry's. She at least made interesting conversation, and seeing as I had no other place to be, I happily did my part to keep the conversation going. After awhile, she got distracted by a friend of hers and ran off the way that only art majors can. So another girl came over in a Cards cap and straight blonde hair and was like, "so did you actually get helped in all that?" and laughed with me when I described the girl that had previously been helping me. The second, far more normal girl, of course, turned out to be a Wash U student.

I also learned that AmerenUE does not put their emergency number on their bills. The 342-1111 is for billing stuff. You should call 342-1000 in an emergency. Of course, during an emergency, their phone lines will be too busy for you to get through, but at least you'll feel better knowing it's the emergency line.

As a power outage bonus, you get a totally unrelated thought. I helped out with an evening contemporary service as part of our youth group sharing about their recent mission trip up in 'Sconsin, and we had dinner afterward. I sat with a married couple and two single women, and much of the conversation relived in vivid multimedia form the various shows and songs of their childhood. I am a tad younger than the three ladies, but after a couple quick exchanges with the guy who is their age, we both concluded neither of us had any idea what the ladies were discussing. I had seen two of the shows, and hadn't even heard of the others. It was a foreign tongue, completely alien; fascinating and scary at the same time.