Lights out

Last night we were all up in the building that we currently cook and eat in, getting ready to eat. I had walked up with the kids (I believe that it is about one and a half city blocks from my house to this building, if you could measure in city blocks) and my Superstar Husband had stopped along the way to do something or other.

On his way into the building, he stopped at the window to make a scary roaring face at our kids, which they started to laugh at... except that at precisely the same moment, we lost power and were smothered by complete and total darkness. (After that, there was almost nothing we could do to convince them that Daddy hadn't made the power go out by scaring them.) My kids hate complete darkness, and they started screaming almost immediately, while I tried to get over to them to grab them.

We scrounged around and found a couple of candles, then a big sack of tealights left over from the gathering. Renee had made lasagna and apple turnovers for dinner, and we ate happily, illuminated by dozens of tealights. It was dark, but pretty.

The silly thing is, I almost never went anywhere in the dark last year without my head lamp. Head lamps are an absolute necessity with us, as there are patches of the Land that are very dark at night, and at a Rainbow Gathering you can't possibly get along without one. I LOVED my head lamp. However, at the last gathering I had lent it to someone (I think it was my husband, actually) when I left, and when it was returned to me, it looked like a horror film for gadgets, wires popping out, pieces missing. Someone did a bad thing to my lamp.

Silly me, I haven't replaced it. And Chinua didn't have his, either. So, the two of us were in the tight spot of trying to make it down to our house in fairly heavy rain, in complete darkness, with only three tealights to help us. We had two little kids and a baby in a stroller. It was not at all easy. We felt like we'd made it into some awkward movie. Why is it so hard just to get to our house right now?

Crazy thing, sight. Without it, you keep veering into the bushes, heading for the pond rather than down the path. You step into an ankle-deep puddle that you'd normally avoid. Have you ever tried to walk by candlelight? And then the rain kept putting them out, so we'd quickly relight each other before they all went out and we were left there without any light.

The good ending is that we got there safely, got the fire blazing, and lit a bunch of candles. About an hour later, the power came back on, and Kai saw some lights go on in my room, and said, "What? It's not possible!" as he ran to investigate. He was so serious about it, he had Chinua and I rolling on the ground laughing.

So anyways, all that to say: Tomorrow, I'm going to buy me a head lamp.