A Box of Chocolates and a Blue Plaid Blanket

A cousin of mine recently wrote a blog about her dreams of living in the country conflicting with the reality of her urban-ness. Her blog lead me to thinking about my life out in the country, and how despite people's preconceived notions of a simpler life, living out in the middle of nowhere is harder than most people could imagine.

Let's go back to January, 1990.

My sister and I were home on Christmas break, and an ice storm was in the forecast. Since a young age, I was taught to fear ice storms. They tore down power lines, sank 200 year old trees as if they were young saplings, and worse, had the potential to shutter your house in darkness for endless days. A side effect of this was food cooked on a kerosene stove. We had no clue we were breathing in toxic fumes, but we had small stoves for extremely cold and/or icy days. The food prepared on it never quite got hot, and from time to time it tasted like gasoline.

On this steel grey January day, we knew the storm was going to hit us hard. Mom and dad, as usual, were nowhere to be found, so my sister and I sat in her room listening to music when it happened. The lights went out and we sat in stunned silence of the storm. It was still daylight outside, but being the teens that we were, we didn't think to read; so we just sat there for a little while.

"What do you want to do? Want to play a game?" I asked.

"No....I don't know." she replied. For the record, my sister never wanted to play games with me. If she did, it was the result of persistent pestering on my part. (Maybe that's where I learned about the value of persistence.)

"Well okay. So what can we do?"

We sat in cold silence for quite a while, and decided to grab our new plaid blankets and wrap ourselves in them. We sat back down, she in her white upholstered chair, and I on the floor nearby. It was our routine. Suddenly, my sister started to stare at a gold Godiva box that sat nearby on a table.

"I know, let's just sit and eat chocolate."

Just sit and eat chocolate? My sister had lost her mind. But I thought it was a funny idea, and I laughed. She was dead serious though. She slowly unwrapped the clear plastic from the box, removed the padding and stared at the delectable treats waiting to be gobbled up on this otherwise terrible day.

"Which one do you want?"

I chose the dark chocolate ganache with raspberry filling. She chose a dark chocolate piece as well. We ate several pieces, and I was truly amused by her choice of activities for that day.

The day without power turned into night, and we continued to live without power for three days. What no one mentions about living in the country is that when power is lost, you are the last one on the power company's list for restoring power.

My dad finally made a desperate call to the power company. He told them he had a heart condition and they needed to restore power soon. He wasn't exactly lying, because he did have a heart attack the summer before, but we didn't feel good about his stretching of the truth. Within four hours we had power restored, and our Christmas tree was aglow again.

And the box of chocolates? I think you have to ask my sister about that.