I was sitting on my couch yesterday afternoon, minding my own business, when suddenly I heard a loud boom.  I looked up to see the transformer in front of our building lit up like a dozen sparklers on the Fourth of July all going off at once.  When the fizzing and sputtering was over, big clouds of smoke puffed up and the tree in front of the building was shaking like crazy, along with all the power lines connected to the transformer.  I seriously thought the tree or the side of our building might’ve got on fire (although I now realize that was kind of silly).

If only I had some photos of the action.

When the carnage was over, the blown transformer dangled precariously over the sidewalk.

dangling_transformer
At this point, we still had power.  About an hour later, however, they turned off the power and over the course of the afternoon, removed all three transformers.  We could see the guys working from our balcony:

working
Since it didn’t seem like they were going to be finished any time soon (a rumor circulated that they were waiting for new transformers from Dominguez Hills), Mick and I went to drown our sorrows in Mexican food and margaritas.  When we returned, they were no closer to getting the lights back on so we went upstairs to start setting up the candles and finding flashlights.

For some reason, my husband loves flashlights.  I’ve never understood it, but for once this infatuation did us some good because not only did we have more than enough flashlights for ourselves, we lent some out to people in the building.

I’d just started a new project and I was itching to make some progress on it, despite the lack of light.  I surrounded myself with flashlights and candles and got to work.  Unfortunately, the light was still really bad and after just a few rows I decided to wait until morning to continue rather than make a mistake because I couldn’t see what I was doing.

knitting_by_candles
I imagine this is the way the pioneer women used to do it, don’t you?

About 1 am the power came back on, much to the chagrin of our dog Stuart, who is the most neurotic pooch I’ve ever met.  He can’t stand any sort of beeping or high pitched noises, and when the power goes off and on there are numerous such noises. 
scared_stu

Poor little guy!

3 Replies to “Urban Pioneer”

  1. Antoinette says: September 2, 2007 at 4:43 pm

    Oh and thanks for the tip on Mick. I’ll never be at a loss on what to buy for him again.

  2. Antoinette says: September 1, 2007 at 11:42 am

    Sounds like a very exciting day! I’ve been holding my breath lately about the power because of the heat. It’s been 104 almost all week. Sometimes the power goes when it’s that hot for that long.
    Poor Stuart! Sweetie is the same.

Leave a Reply