Home things

While the whole college thing seems easier and easier as August approaches, things at home have stayed the same as always, more or less. Preferrably more.

Leoni no longer works here. For those who don’t know who Leoni is (of course you don’t, as I’ve mentioned her a few times without saying anything else), she’s a mix between housekeeper and family friend, and we’ve known her for almost two decades. She lived here for much of the ’90s, but eventually moved out and started a family, as expected, and ultimately stopped working here somewhere in the first half of 2001.

She came back to work regularly three years later and until last month (or earlier this month?), being more of a nanny than anything else in the last twelve months. Now that she’s gone, needing to spend more time with her family, there have been some schedule changes so my nephew is always taken care of. Not only that, but my mother and sister handle all of the cooking at noon. It usually turns out well. Usually.

With my four-day breaks, and college work being almost a breeze, I get a lot of sleep and online time. What’s strange is that, despite all the free time, I am the exact opposite of productive. I have two ideas for Blender work floating around my head: the first one came in May, and the other one’s been around for no more than two days. The “old” idea has remained surprisinly fresh in my memory, but I have yet to grab that big tabloid-sized sketchbook and draw it before it fades away. I wouldn’t want either of those ideas to fade away, especially now that my portfolio is beginning to gather dust after not putting anything new in it since the redesign.

Anyway … it’s well past the halfway point of July (already?), and the hurricane season hasn’t given us anything worth panicking writing about. There have been a few storms, but they seem to have done little in terms of damage. Now, all we get is a little bit of rain from the cloudy sky. I like it when it’s cloudy. The clouds provide us with a nice shield from the usual scorching sun. On the other hand, the “threat” of rain is almost always there, but it’s not that bad a tradeoff … or is it?

As of late, the whole country has been complaining about long power outages. We’re lucky, as everyone else is getting them, not us. There was even a comic in one of the newspapers where a guy was going to pay the power bill and asked to be charged not for the blackouts, but for the lightouts. I’d like to believe that we already got our share of power outages last month, but it’d be foolish to think that the power company isn’t holding any more “surprises” for us in the near future.

It’s well past midnight, and my eyes are a bit heavy. Might be from the lack of sleep last night (more of those evil sheets that won’t stay in place, and a malfunctioning fan) or because there’s a fan aiming right at my face, resulting in dried-out eyes. I hope it’s the latter, because being so tired despite having a three-day work week is a clear indicator that something’s not quite right. I’m not the healthiest person in the family, that’s for sure.

And now, this post is over. For someone who spends his time doing little, I sure write a lot.

A longer night

Following from the previous post … the power company had told us that things would get back to normal at around 5:30 in the afternoon. After much waiting in the living room, I sat on the rocking chair in the balcony, a chair that’s probably much older than I am. Anyway, I waited, and just at the time when we’d get our power back, I heard a loud BOOM! which came from up the street. Some people who were passing by our building looked back to see what had happened, but I didn’t bother going out to check. After all, we get all the luck (not!).

So, Leoni left, my sister arrived and we (nephew included) sat in the balcony as we waited for others to get here. My sister called the power company so ask about our service. My mother did the same, and they both repeated this action every time we ran out of things to do, talk about or make fun of. Something had happened, and we were going be left in the dark for much longer than expected. Yay.

The only one who seemed very amused by the situation was my baby nephew, who is easily entertained. I still held on to the camera, and was looking for things to photograph. At the same time, my mother wanted me to make photos of the nephew laughing. Good thing they no longer ask me for that, as it’s more than enough to have an actual baby at home in addition to dozens, hundreds of photographs that no one looks at once they’re out of the camera.

As we had to save our backup power, we had to keep all the lights off. No one felt like cooking in the dark, so we ordered pizza. Delicious pizza, which we downed with Red Rock, a local brand of raspberry-flavored soda (or pop, for those who call it that). We didn’t have ice for it (everything melted!), so we ordered the coldest they had. The cold eventually went away, but we didn’t mind and gradually finished the two-liter bottle before midnight.

After dinner, most of us went back to the balcony for a while, and I was eventually left alone with the camera. I didn’t want to be anywhere else (in the apartment, of course) because I couldn’t bear the heat. Eventually, it started raining, with some thunder and lightning here and there. I tried my best get a good shot of the rain at night (using the flash) but I didn’t get much of a result. After a long while, and close to midnight, my mother told me that I shouldn’t be in the balcony at such an hour and I was forced to be inside.

I’m not sure how everyone else managed to sleep with the uncomfortable heat. We had to keep the fans off, of course, and having the windows open didn’t help much. I stayed in the living room for a bit, and took a picture or two. My sister came out and decided to sleep on the living room floor (on a blanket). Before I made the decision to go to bed, because I just didn’t want to sleep, I noticed that we had a bit of running water again, so I filled up every bucket and large container I could find, so others wouldn’t have to in the morning.

Thankfully (?), the power came back at about 9:30 in the morning. Turned out to be a 27-hour blackout, and some of our refrigerator food had spoiled.

Strangely, the power bill keeps coming higher and higher. More and more, it seems to me that they charge us extra for power outages. What a way for things to work! Wouldn’t you agree, reader(s)?

A long day

While my mind is still partially occupied with the subject of the previous post (I can blame all the news and music sites/channels for it, can’t I?), I’m barely close to the halfway point of this five-day weekend. Yep. Another one. So, here’s the first half, or maybe one third, of the photos from June 5th’s awesome great long, annoying blackout.

The power went out around 9:30 in the morning. As I generally don’t wake up at such an hour, especially on an off day (no college on Fridays!), those first few hours didn’t bother me much. As our backup power doesn’t last very long unless we turn everything off, I couldn’t do much of anything. So, I grabbed the old camera. After a few shots of my bedroom window, and having nothing else to do, I got bored and went up to the roof to capture the view.

After making several photos of the view and things I found interesting on the top of this old building, I went downstairs again and photographed the patio (again). I was so very bored that day.

Once I got enough photos, I sat in the living room, waiting patiently for the power to come back, as I did the last time. The power company was supposedly fixing some things ever since the morning (“fixing something” is usually their excuse for the longer outages) and they said the power would be back by 5:30 or so, but at that time, something went wrong. Very wrong.

Slowly, the day turned into night.

Things done during a power outage

So, entering the actual month of June … this is why I should (never again) allow for journaling material to pile up. I’ve figured out a way to tell it all rather quickly. And it’s for the best interest of both this blog and my patience that I be hasty with this, seeing as this month didn’t start as well as it could have, given how May was nice … in comparison.

June 1st brings about the beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season, but it also brought along a string of power outages, and a couple of significant blackouts. And the month isn’t over yet, so, while a 27-hour blackout may be hard to top, I consider that the power company is up to the challenge of leaving us two whole days without electricity. This post isn’t about that blackout in particular (which happened on the 5th), but a power outage that took place on the 1st, and one that is very short in comparison.

It was a Monday, so I didn’t have to go to class or do anything at all. Our backup power (inverter and batteries) runs out rather quickly, so there’s not much I can do at home during an outage. Wanting to take advantage of the fact that I really, truly had nothing else to do, I grabbed the camera and began snapping away. I’ve been having some problems with it, as it’s not always metering as well as it used to, resulting in overexposed (too bright!) or underexposed (too dark!) photos. It doesn’t always happen, but I have yet to figure out what’s wrong with it.

While Leoni took care of my nephew, I was going back and forth between the living room and the patio, and everything in between. After some photos, I got tired and decided to capture something different. I went out through the back exit to the area behind the main stairwell and the stairwell that leads to the roof, and pointed up at the visible sky. Some good shots were made, but aren’t shown here (that will be on a later post). I eventually got tired, having fulfilled my daily quota of photography, and sat down on the couch.

The power finally came back at around 6:00 p.m., and that was the end of … that. Little did I know that something of the same nature, but much worse, was going to happen just later in the week. Check back later for that one.

The long, boring darkness

Monday was one of the most boring days ever! The power company is evil, very evil. The night before. I slept little the night before that boring day, partly because there was a small incident with the sink. Not caused by me, because I avoid trouble, but my brother has got his share of bad luck. Good thing we all acted quickly before the whole apartment got flooded. It’s a rather old sink in a rather old apartment, anyway, so it probably could’ve happened to any of us . I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner!

So, that night, I slept little. In the morning afternoon, after waking up in those uncomfortable sheets that just don’t fit the bed, and after eating and watching an SVU episode I’d already seen (reruns can be evil), I tried to sleep some more, but the power company wasn’t going to let that happen. At around 2:30, the power went out. No big deal, of course. After all, it would be strange if it never happen in a country that’s been suffering from a power deficit for over three decades. I continued to sleep for a short while, thinking that the power would be back after a few minutes.

Well, it wasn’t. Our backup power quickly ran out, for some reason, and I was forced to turn off the fan that that was aimed at me. This, together with the lousy bedsheets, made my attempt to sleep a very uncomfortable one. It was useless. I had to get up. I sat on my bed for a bit, walked around the apartment, went to the patio to look at the plants, walked around some more and finally sat down in the living room, where Leoni was taking care of my baby nephew until my sister came home from work. While Leoni went to change, I sat there trying to keep him from crying. I’m good at that, but I tend to quickly run out of games, and he quickly loses interest in whatever new fun thing I come up with.

After Leoni got changed, we decided to open the balcony door. It’s a glass sliding door that we keep closed so the dogs won’t bark at anyone who stands there. The three of us sat on the balcony (the baby in his stroller, of course). I had the camera in my hand, and started making photos of him. I snapped a few with his hand reaching towards the lens. My sister seemed to like those. As the light started to fade, I began aiming the camera at the evening sky. Not soon after, after 6:00, my sister arrived, and Leoni left. After taking her time to freshen up from having walked all the way home from work, she sat on rocking chair where Leoni had been sitting, and we continued to be bored, I continued to press the camera shutter … until my brother arrived.

So, it became four of us, getting bored, although the baby seemed mildly entertained by it. Finally, my father arrived, and all five of us just sat there. It was a bit crowded and, other than for playing with the baby, we remained silent. This was getting very ridiculous, so my father called the power company to complain about this blackout. They said that they had received two complaints from this area, and that the power had been out since 6:00! Just an hour or so, really? We’re all pretty sure that it had been gone for much longer than that (remember, 2:30). They also said they were sending a “brigade” to fix the problem. Holding our breaths for those wouldn’t be a good idea.

After the call, we moved away from the balcony. My siblings and I went to our rooms (two rooms, and they’re connected). We complained a bit about what was going on. Turns out that this Monday is the opening for the “book fair”, and the President was going to be there. Did they leave us in the dark so they could power up the event? Because it was starting to seem that way, reader(s).

A while later, my sister, the nephew and I sat in the living room, making each other laugh. We came up with an idea for a TV show where this high-class character would say the Word of the Day, consisting on traditional Dominican slang. It seems I came up with the funnier stuff, as she laughed out loud with the words and examples I provided. My nephew was laughing, also, but he probably had no idea what we were talking about. When my brother came home, after doing some shopping, he just rolled his eyes at our concept.

After a while, we got tired from the word thing, and went back to the balcony. Our father went to sleep, my brother was making (his) dinner and my sister was trying to get her son to sleep, while I tried to snap more photos of the darkness outside. She was annoyed because the power hadn’t come back after all this while (but I was the one with more right to complain, having been here all day), so she put the baby in his crib and went to call again while I sat on the rocking chair, making more photos for you people.

My brother and sister had each bet on when the power would come back. He said 8:30, she said 9:00. It finally came back at 9:20, so they both lost (didn’t bet anything, anyway). I rushed to the bathroom to take a much-needed shower. My brother had cooked plenty enough for the three of us and, while I hesitated to try his cooking (siblings cooking? = oh, noes!), I gave in and quite enjoyed it. Sautéed squid with garlic and not sure what else, with fried plantain slices (plantain is a staple of the Dominican diet).

So, while the day ended well, I hope I don’t have to live through another one like it in a very long time.