Well that was interesting. I was very lucky. I was in the office when the blackout hit, so I managed to get a ride home with a co-worker. The stairwells in my building were pitch black. It was like one of those movies where they put a prisoner in dark solitary confinement and he goes insane. I was fully prepared to sit in the lobby and wait, but then these two old ladies convinced me to go up with them. So we were slowly walking up, counting our steps, narrating our journey, feeling our way along the walls, and on the sixth floor we met this guy with a candle, so he escorted all of us back to our apartments. That guy is a hero!

Luckily I hyper-cool my apartment when I'm at work, closing all the curtains and cranking up the air conditioner, so it was still cool when I got home. Water wasn't working, but fortunately I had 7 water bottles, 2 big bottles of coke, 24 cans of iced tea, plus some lemonade and wine and orange juice, so I'm not going to die any time soon. I had a peanut butter sandwich for dinner so I wouldn't have to open the fridge and read the newspaper and Harry Potter until it got dark.

I took a sleeping pill at sunset - I don't like to take them but the last thing I needed was to be in pitch dark in a power outage freaking out because I can't sleep. It's surprising how dark things are without electricity! Candles produce so little light! (Don't worry, I had my candle in a very tall jar and kept it well-supervised). Life must have been so bleak before the invention of electricity! I quickly nodded off, and woke up at about 4:45 am when the power came back on. I listened to a bit of radio and watched a bit of TV and puttered around. Took a shower even though I don't know if I'm supposed to. I was surprised to see a Globe and Mail at my door, but that gives me something to keep me amused.

I assume I don't have to go to work today. I'll stay home until someone calls and says "Why aren't you at work?" anyway. It's a state of emergency and I'm certainly not an essential service, so I doubt I'd get in trouble for not going. I'm trying very hard to be a good girl and conserve energy, but it's very hard to sit at home all day and not use energy. I obviously have my computer on, I did have a shower (since I don't know if the power and water will go out again, I may as well be clean), and while I'm not keeping my TV on 24/7 I will turn it on when I find something I want to watch. I also cooked some pasta so that I'll have food if the power goes out again. I could really use some groceries, but I doubt stores are open. The problem with having taken a sleeping pill is that I'm not tired at all, and napping would be a good thing to do today.

Ah well, I had been sort of hoping for a day off.