when we last visited here...

there was no State of Emergency and I had suggested it was just another day in the Big Smoke... well how wrong was that? 4:12 and... poof, if you live in North America then you know the story --- the computers went down (instead of 'the lights went out'). So now I'm assuming everyone has survived Power Outage 2003, and that Monday has brought back some form of normality, i.e. lights on, air conditioners alive and well, appliances running, computers ticking, and everyone doing their consumer-y best to conserve energy. yeah right. I must admit the outage had little effect on me, other than giving me a friday off... an extra afternoon at the beach as it were.
Firstly I walked home (only 9 minutes from where I work) thinking the outage was only a local one but as I passed each non-functioning stoplight and building without power I figured, hey something's going on... so I called my parents and they reported that their power was also out and they live 2 hours outside of t-dot. I then tried calling other people but the phone network was overloaded and I wasn't able to get through. Once I reached my apartment I decided that the best thing to do was to go for a run, thursday is usually my long slow one... very dedicated don't ya think! There were lots of people on the sidewalk by this time and they looked at me a little strangely as I passed by them... the only other runners I saw at this time was the UofT dudes at Churchill Park. It was very hot and humid and not the best hour of my running life but then it didn't need to be since I was racing on Sunday. I arrived home to find the lights still out, had a quick and cold shower and went outside to see even larger streams of people on the sidewalks, and lots of other people gathering on patios drinking themselves into a different state of emergency... I suppose that isn't such a bad way of coping since I've heard it took some people over 5 hours to get home during the rush. Anyway, I managed to find dinner at the Cora Pizza - they were still making some za despite the oven-y heat in their little eatery... went home, tried calling a few people but they were either not there or I could not get a connection. Fell asleep amid the peace of non-electricity and woke up at eleven p.m. when my little but effective fan came on (telling me I had power again)... isn't that a rough evening?~}

still essential even though I didn't have to work on Friday, Mika