Earlier tonight, the power went on on our street. I don’t know why. It was early evening when it went out, and Zoë and Miranda were watching Pocahontas at the time. Andrew was on the train on his way home.

The power went off and I sort of gave a little shout because I was startled. Zoë started to cry mostly because her movie went off, but also because all the lights and my computer went off, and that was just too weird for her to understand. Miranda started to cry because she always cries when Zoë does, pretty much (and she cries when I sneeze, raise my voice, and sometimes when I sing, which makes me think she’s sensitive to certain vocal frequencies, but I digress).

So I had a house that was rapidly getting dark and two sobbing children, neither of whom could understand my explanation that while it was weird, it was nothing to worry about. I took them into our bedroom because it’s got a big window and I figured I could just raise the shade and let what lingering light there was filter in, and cuddling up in bed on a rainy day with no electricity on just seems like a fairly good plan.

Well, they cried off and on for an hour, to make a long story short. I’d get one comforted and the other would start up. It was quite the carnival. Yippee. I called Andrew several times on my mobile phone because the proper phone didn’t work (it’s electric), and he wasn’t answering. I had visions of it being a huge, city-wide power outage, and the trains all stopped… I thought maybe the transmitter tower for the mobile was out or something… Turns out he had his phone in his pocket and it was too muffled to hear the ring.

Anyway, when he came home he brought some flashlights (torches, Australians call them) from where he happened to know they were hiding, and the kids thought that was kinda fun. I suggested we go out to eat since we couldn’t cook anything (the whole kitchen is electric!) and it was dark, anyway. Just as we were leaving, the power came back on. We went out, anyway, mostly because Zoë had been so upset and I knew if we changed plans she’d go absolutely nuts.

So we went out and had a nice meal and went to put Zoë to bed, but she wasn’t having any of that. I think she was still somewhat off balance from the drama earlier. We tried several things to persuade her to sleep, but no. Finally, Andrew said he wanted to go to bed anyway, and she could lie down with him. Fine. Cool. Good idea.

11:40 pm the phone rings. I think to myself, “Who the HELL would be calling me at 11:40 pm?” and started thinking all those, “Oh, no, something awful must have happened!” thoughts, but the machine picked up and hear Andrew’s voice, “Come get this girl, please.”

Yes, he actually CALLED on his mobile, from the bedroom. Zoë was apparently not inclined to sleep in there, either, and she was climbing on him, singing, playing, rolling around, etc. So he called for help. Literally.

She did go to bed after that. Said, “Goo nite,” and happily pulled up the covers.

Is there a point to this? Nope. Not that I’m aware of.

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