Last night, I was enjoying our A/C, watching the Argentina vs. Cabo Verde World Cup battle, when—suddenly—the sky turned black, and the winds kicked up, and we heard a loud crash on our front porch—like a car hit our house—and this was the result of the wind lifting a very heavy, very solid metal chair, bashing it against our aluminum siding, and then yanking the chair down the front porch steps . . . soon after that, our block lost power—there were trees down all over town, and one had pulled down a wire on Second Ave, up the block from our house—and a transformer on the North Side (Walter Ave) exploded . . . I watched the end of the game on someone's phone at my neighbor's house while firetrucks and police blocked off streets and assessed the damage; the scary thing was that without A/C our house got hot fast, even though it was raining and the sun was down, but the humidity works fast—and it made me realize just how attached and dependent we are to the power grid (and this morning I started Googling the most temperate places in the U.S.—places where you need the least heating and cooling . . . unfortunately, many of them are in California, and I'm not moving that far away, but it seems the Blue Ridge Mountains are a closer alternative) but PSE&G was on the ball last night, and we had consistent power by 11 PM—so we didn't lose any food in our refrigerator, and we were able to get a good night's sleep.
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