The Great Krestel Power Outage: Hour 33

In what they're calling the worst storm in over a decade, Wes and I were one of the over 868,000 ComEd customers to lose power.

And there's also a heat advisory on.
It's 95 degrees out there.
God have mercy on us.

Things I've learned during the Great Outage:

• Lighting candles instantly gives any activity a different vibe. There's something oddly romantic about peeing by candlelight. (I should warn my readers, though, that having long hair and leaving your lighted candle on the back of the toilet tank makes things decidedly unromantic. Exciting, but not romantic.)

• They say things like wearing empire waists, vertical stripes, or dark solid colors can be slimming. You know what works better than all that? Having no lights. I've never looked better!

• The touch tones for "1-800-EDISON1" can sound like part of the melody to that Miami Sound Machine song if you dial it in the correct timing. Come on, baby, shake your body, do that conga.

• I don't want to keep harping on the whole "I think my husband might murder me" thing, but think I should make note of a conversation we had in the darkness:

Wes: "Now they're saying that the Grand Rapids killer did it because he was bi-polar. Is that an acceptable excuse?"

Jacki: "Eh. The only reason I can think of where it'd be understandable.... and even then it's iffy... would be something like self-defense."

Wes: "Yeah... that, or if someone made you really mad."

Despite it all, I am very thankful that power is all we have lost. I feel blessed to have all that I do. But, if you think of it, please say a little prayer that our power is restored as quickly as possible.

J