Any Pot In A Storm

Two nights ago a very short-lived but very strong windstorm ravaged the Philadelphia area. Our house lost power, along with over 250,000 others.  An ice storm had a similar effect on many more people this past winter; we were spared which was a huge blessing - Brrr.  Being warm and entertained however, made us complacent; we failed to purchase a generator.  To be fair we got two estimates on gas-powered, whole house generators.  What was priced a couple of years ago at $6,000.00 is now estimated to be $17,000.00.  As I mentioned, we failed to buy a generator.

I am not a fading lily and I do not have any life threatening illnesses which require electricity, so if we lose power, I may not blog, but I will not perish either.  Thanks to our township though, we have a problem.

Three years ago we were commanded to "hook up" to the newly installed sewer line.  That cost us over ten grand, but since our septic was on it's last legs and a new septic service would have cost 24 grand, I thought we were lucky.  HA!  The small detail of which we were informed as the trucks drove away and we dutifully watered our brow beaten lawn, was "Oh, by the way, it has a motor - so you best not flush much or at all in a power outage."  No showers, no dishes...   We have a twelve gallon tank, but since I have no idea when the "grinder motor" operates I could have twelve gallons of room for waste water or twelve ounces.  When the space is full, all ends up on my family room floor, which is adjacent to the lowest level toilet - terrific!!

Our recent black-out was predicted to be three days.  Suddenly I was a pioneer with three other pioneers in the house.  I was proud of perking coffee on the grill and cooking breakfast in similar fashion in a cast iron pan. I washed dishes outside in two buckets, one soapy, one clear (ran them all through the dishwasher today).  The bathroom issue, is just plain hooey. Whose idiot idea was it to force us to have electric sewers?  We ran away to a town with toilets that flush; nothing else mattered.

All I need is a tiny gasoline powered generator and an electrician to put an electrical plug on the grinder motor so that I can run that, and only that, in the dark.  Let my neighbors run their huge generators that sound like idling trucks all day and all night.  I miss the silence of the black out, but for heaven's sake I miss the gentle reassuring sound of toilet swoosh even more.