power, baby

Yesterday morning I was doing laundry and surfing the net while Johnny was enjoying a long nap. A rarity, but more about that in another post.

The apartment felt a bit cool, but we had a cold snap going on (-20!) with a bit of a wind so maybe it was just the lack of adequate insulation that was the culprit.

But then it started to get quite chilly... Then I noticed our downstairs thermostats, which usually have a digital output of temp setting, current temp,time, etc, were blank. Uh oh, this can't be good.

I was bit confused though seeing as they're baseboard heaters (not a furnace)... And the lights were on (so we weren't out of power). I contacted Tom at work and he got me to check the oven (which didnt' work either) then explained the difference of 220 vs 110 power. It seemed that anything that ran off of 220 wasn't working. Unfortunately this includes most major appliances and baseboard heat.

I phoned Hydro, they told me to contact my landlord as a problem with 220 power is RARELY their fault. Our landlord would have to get an electrician to come out, check the issue, and either fix it himself or call Hydro if it was indeed their problem. (Right, because he all have a few hours to spare looking for an electrician while our homes are freezing over...)

The landlord stopped by and ensured me he was on it, but I decided a home with no heat was no place for a baby to be when it was -20 outside. I packed up (and realized how unprepared I was for a situation such as this!) and headed to a friend's house. On my way out of the driveway I saw our landlord again and he informed me that the electrician had already come and the problem was indeed with Hydro (it's times like these that it's awesome our landlord knows everybody). Apparently the whole block was having the same problem.

I spent the afternoon at my friend's then on my way to pick up Tom from work I swung by the house and saw the Hydro guys working on this issue. Perfect! I thought. We will be in before dinner.

When Tom and I returned after his work, there was no power at all anymore. Never mind an issue with 220, the street was DARK. None of the houses had any power. And what was worse, the hydro guys were no where to be found.

We headed back to our friends', who graciously made us dinner and kept us occupied for the evening. Hydro Quebec has a lovely automated call in system that informs you when they think you'll be back up and running... They predicted 3:00am. Great.

Now, we had been sleep training Jay for the previous few nights and he had made AMAZING progress. I was so upset it may have been for nothing considering we may be bunking at our friends' house for the night. I was desperate to get back home. Desperate to get Jay back in his crib for the night. So around 9:30pm we decided to take the little man for a spin so he could get some sleep (there were quit a few people over at our friends' house, which was great for a distraction but not so good for a baby to fall asleep.)

We picked up some Tim's and went for a ride. Around 11:30pm we swung by the house and saw the Hydro guys working again. They had replaced the transformer and were in the process of packing up. YAY!!

We continued to stalk them thinking it was only a matter of minutes before they flicked the switch and we would be back in business (and going to sleep in our own beds!) Around 1:30am (yeah, not exactly a matter of minutes...) they were done, the power was on and we were in our home.

I was so thankful we were home! The thermostats read about 15 degrees so we put an additional heater in Jay's room to get the temperature up sooner than later so he could go to bed. We woke Jay and began the process of suiting him up in his jammies. Right when I had him stark naked the equivalent to fireworks went off right outside our bedroom window. Major cracking, flashes of light, loud sizzling/hissing and then, of course, total darkness. The whole block was out again.

I sat holding my cold naked baby in the dark and was furious. We were thisclose to sleeping in our own beds. Now it's nearly 2:00am and we need to pack back up and leave. To make matters even more interesting the hydro line in front of our house was on fire. Yup, on fire. The line is about 20 feet from our bedroom window... So right at eye level for us. Funny thing is I was so mad at this point it didn't scare me, just pissed me off even more.

Our town's security was there within a minute (probably the most exciting thing ever to happen on his shift!) and the firetrucks arrived 9 minutes later.

We put our poor tired baby back in the car and headed back to our friends' home. Thankfully we have a key and they were half expecting us back anyways. But I must say, I consider anyone willing to let us (and our baby - who probably wasn't going to sleep after all of this) in with welcoming arms at 2:15am to be awesomest people ever. But I already knew that about them ;)

Jay did fall asleep, eventually. And so did we. A call to the landlord this morning and we had the great news that we had power again (and had for about 2 hours already... Meaning maybe it was worth returning again). The tree in our front yard had been chopped to bits and our heater in the kitchen apparently decided to retire after all of the excitement.

But besides that we are home. Unscathed. Twenty-four hours later.