Tuesday, February 28, 2006

The Very Spooky Night

So there we were, watching a DVD of Corpse Bride, and it's raining and blustery outside, and I didn't know the wind could blow that hard, but we don't live on a treacherous hillside with 60-year-old electric wires anymore, so I figured we're safe, and... suddenly...
Darkness.
Power out all over Marin.
100-mph gusts. Hail. Sheets of rain. Tree branches blowing into the patio.
And we hadn't had supper yet! Dang, I had plans for that shrimp stock in the freezer... a little angel-hair pasta... Well, maybe later.
So Cranky opened a couple of cans and groped by flashlight for the nice vinegars and oils, far nicer than this salad deserved, but it tasted so good in the darkness (power didn't come back on until this morning).
I had to use the flash attachment to get this impromptu picture. Heh, there's a spare flashlight.
(Oh! What is that book she's reading?)

13 comments:

MizD said...

Ooh! You've got Crashing The Gate! So, how is it, how is it? Is it worth reading by flashlight?

I just stumbled across a book I must track down: A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink. Have you heard of it? It's all about right-brained thinking and the 21st Century economy (or at least I think it is). I'm hoping it'll do the trick and convince me that my usless liberal arts degree wasn't all that useless after all.

cookiecrumb said...

It's good! Cranky's taking the first crack at it (and yes, he did read it by flashlight). From what he tells me so far, anyone who reads dailykos.com regularly will be already familiar with a lot of their arguments. Cranky doesn't read dk regularly, and everything he's quoted from the book so far is... well, I *already knew.* But I think it will be great to devour it in a big gulp.
Hadn't heard of the Pink book. (Pub. date March 24.) I'll wait and see how you like it.
Have you read "Blink"?
all right, all right, sorry, people.
We now return to our usual programming.

Guy said...

Jeez, not much happened over here. In fact, I woke up and was NOT impressed at all.
Our power goes out on a regular basis, storm or no. I'm always amazed at how dependant I am on power. Even when I realize no power and grab the six pack, no tv, no computer, no light, no nothing. And drinking beer and reading a book sucks. Sigh, luckily for me I have a deck of cards stashed.

Biggles

MizD said...

Blink is on my to-read list (along with half the library, of course.)

Y'know, Malcolm Gladwell just started a blog.

(Oh! Speaking of authors and blogs: Wil Wheaton blogged about a cheese sandwich yesterday! He is a god.)

Last time the power went out here, we read Master & Commander by hurricane lamp. It was quite appropriate.

Greg said...

I've having a hard time not going after that groped by flashlight line.You don't get a straight line like that very often..

cookiecrumb said...

Biggles: These new-fangled gas ranges with electric ignition? Ha ha. I wonder if I could override it and just use a match. Probably. But I suspect cooking in the dark is potentially unsafe. Cold beans and a sixpack!

Mrs D: Awesome about both Gladwell and Wheaton. Even most awesomest about Wheaton! What a cutie.
Don't buy Blink. Wait a couple of days.

Greg! We do it with the lights out. ;)

Michelle said...

Gasp! You're bad! But I like it! Glad you made it through the storm...I want to hear what you thought of Blink - we read it for my book club.

cookiecrumb said...

I thought Blink was great. I loved the bits on the suggestive power of food packaging.

Cioppino said...

Der Sturm bei uns war gar nicht so schlimm, und keine power outage :-)

Dagny said...

Sorry to hear about the power outage. I had the misfortune of driving last night through the rain and wind. You are quite the Girl Scout though. I know where to go when I'm hungry and there's no power.

ZaZa said...

Don't sell bean salad short. At least the homemade kind.

We had the rain and the wind, but for once we didn't lose power up here. Thank goodness. When you're "all electric" and on a well, you really are incapacitated without it.

That right brain thinking thing is supposed to mean we non-linear types are going to be gods. Twould be nice.

Passionate Eater said...

The Corpse Bride is really cute, and has an ending that satisfies fans of the Corpse Bride, and the other fiancee-lady.

As for the power-outage, I'm sorry to hear that. I hope your ceiling was leak-free, and that your frozen foods stayed in good shape. Now don't forget to reset the clock on your oven and microwave!

cookiecrumb said...

PE: Yeah, we watched the rest of the movie the next day, and the ending was great! (Then we watched the DVD added features on how they make the puppets. Awesome.)