This afternoon when I went into my bedroom, there was a power failure. A brief investigation determined the power was on in my apartment hallway and the master bath, just not in my bedroom. I reset the circuit breakers. That did not fix the problem. I left a message for maintenance while wondering what happened. Really liking electricity in my bedroom, I continued to work on identifying the problem. The problem was a wall outlet with loose connections. Implementing an interim repair (I wiggled the outlet), power was restored.
This evening when I tried to start my car to go meet a friend at the mall for a walk, the battery did not have enough oomph to start and the starter motor ground to a halt. When I was 15 minutes late meeting my friend, she called me, agreed to come over and give me a jump-start. Somewhere along the way, I came up with a pair of jumper cables on steroids that are made out of a 15 feet long heavy copper cable. Normally, they work great to give someone a jumpstart. Tonight they did not work. I had noticed that the spark of the initial connection was weak. Wiggling all four connections did not fix the problem. A closer look determined that the auto shop had not tightened up the negative connection on the battery when they had serviced my car last week. Since it was literally freezing outside on a clear January night, I twisted the cable clamp back and forth to make a better connection without digging out tools in the dark. The car started right up.
My friend and I chatted outside on a beautiful clear cold night while waiting for my windshield to defrost. Once I could see to drive, we went to a meeting in separate cars.
While this all may sound like a pain, there was a lot to be grateful for. On the short drive to the meeting, I reflected back on experiences growing up on a farm with a father that had a degree in electrical engineering, did his own electrical work, and saw no need to run a ground wire. Along with the crazy experiences of watching my sister get a 220V shock from a clothes dryer and my father having a tractor battery blow-up in his face, I did learn some basic troubleshooting skills.
Today, those skills came in handy. I would go through withdrawals not having lights, clock and TV in my bedroom. Tonight, I will read more on gratitude and watch TV for awhile. Tomorrow I will tighten the battery post on my car.
On my way to the meeting tonight, I got to grateful to my father for the skills he taught me growing up on the farm. There was healing in that experience. We were estranged when he did almost 20 years ago.
I love the many uses for electricity around my apartment. Heat, hot water, cooking, lights, clocks, computers, phones, TV and the internet. I am grateful for each of those uses that all make my life better and far more comfortable.
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