Powerless

It was a sunny, calm, clear morning when the electrical power went out shortly before noon. I continued to work at my lap top until the battery ran out, then I ate lunch. We still had phone service (on a simple phone that didn't need electricity) and I learned from the electric company that the power would be restored between 12:30 and 2:30 pm. I took a nap.

The electric company reported that power would be restored between 2:30 and 4:30 pm. I made several long phone calls, catching up with family news.

The power company reported that power would be restored between 4:30 and 6:30 pm. I read. Then my husband and I ate an early supper. He had a movie date with a couple of friends. I read some more until the daylight faded.

The electric company reported that the power would be restored between 6:30 and 8:30 pm. I went to bed, listening for awhile to my battery-powered radio. The neighbors across the street had a very noisy generator running. If I had been quite tired, I probably would have slept in spite of the noise, but since it was earlier than my usual bed-time and I was restless, the noise was annoying. Why couldn't they graciously accept the situation and go to bed like most of the rest of the people in the neighborhood?

The electric company reported that the power would be restored between 8:30 and 10:30 pm. It finally came back about 10:00. There was another glitch sometime in the night, but this morning everything seems back to normal.

We're so dependant on electricity for every activity, it's hard to think of activities that don't rely on it. Here's a list of things to do when the electricity goes out:

read
write (letters, for example)
sketch little things from around the house
reorganize drawers and cupboards
clean and re-pot house plants
weed the garden
mend: buttons, ripped seams, loose hems
polish shoes
sew, knit, crochet, embroider
take a walk

Of course, all these depend on having light. When the sun goes down, go to bed. When the sun comes up, get up.

There was one positive, unintended consequence of this experience: When I opened a seldom-used drawer to retrieve a long-disused simple phone, I found a stash of items I've been looking for for several weeks. I still haven't figured out why in the world I put them there in the first place.

Critters: Possum

When we first noticed the smell several days ago, I thought to myself, "It's probably a dead bird or possibly a dead squirrel." But as the smell got stronger and lasted longer, I realized something bigger was decomposing. Gathering up my courage and holding my breath, I poked around in the bushes between the driveway and the pond, and found a very large, very dead possum.

What to do?

The carcass was too big, too rotten and too tangled in the bushes to scoop up neatly with a shovel. So we tried an old remedy, used for centuries to hasten the decomposition of flesh: we covered it with ashes from the wood-burning stove. The smell diminished almost instantly and the effect seems to be holding now, a day later. According to a chemist friend, the protein --- that is everything but the hair and bones --- will soon be reduced to its elements and go back into the soil. The ashes also kill the bacteria that produce the smell.

It looks like this critter was injured near-by --- perhaps hit by a car --- because there is a trail of blood on the driveway. It may have been seeking water and came as far as the pond, where it hid in the bushes and expired.

The possum, along with the coon and the skunk, are North American animals. To European visitors, they are a curiosity. We were once asked by Norwegian friends who were here for the year, to look at the strange creature in the compartment next to the fireplace in the house they were renting. The box had both an exterior and an interior door through which to pass fire wood. A mother possum had found this protected spot ideal for birthing her babies. When people unaccustomed to these creatures ask about them, I need to remember to use the full names --- opossum, raccoon --- in case anyone wants to look up more about them.

Later - I just realized my previous post was about ashes, too.

Scattering Ashes

My sister-in-law phoned this morning to say that her daughter-in-law's father had died. This wasn't unexpected, but there are logistical problems about who can get there when. I asked if he would be cremated, since this would give everyone more flexibility about when to hold a memorial service. She didn't know, but said his mother had been cremated and this got us talking about the scattering of ashes. Although the grandmother had died some time ago and most of her ashes have been scattered, some of them will be taken someday to her native Scotland.

My sister-in-law asked what my husband and I wanted done when we died. I'd asked my husband that question a few months ago. His parents are buried together in a church cemetery along with many relatives from several generations back. That gives my husband a lot of comfort, but he said he wanted to be cremated.

“Where do you want your ashes scattered?” I asked.

“Around the campus,” he replied, the place where he has worked for over 35 years.

This will probably need to be done secretly since I'm not sure it's legal to scatter human remains just anywhere. We kept my mother's ashes for five and a half years until my Dad died. I asked the funeral director if it was OK to scatter the ashes near the house. He didn't answer my questions directly, but said, “I think you should be able to scatter them anywhere you want.”

So we scattered Mom and Dad together under a big spruce tree that my Dad had planted more than fifty years earlier. But we saved a few of Dad's ashes. My sister said, “Maybe this is crazy, but I'd like to put some of Dad's ashes on Grandpa Rees' grave.” Dad had always had a close relationship with his Grandpa Rees who had been more of a father to him than his actual father.

My daughter has named her first child Rees, after his ancestors. When we all arrived at the country cemetery where Grandpa Rees was buried, she was surprised to see her son's name, Rees, on 20 or 30 tombstones. “Are they all ours?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied. So there's comfort in looking at the grave markers of our ancestors and thinking that a little piece of their DNA lives in us. But, like my husband, I want to be cremated and my ashes scattered.

Later: Where do I want my ashes scattered? Anywhere that will be a comfort to my survivors.