Didn't wake up until a quarter 'til noon. And woke with a mild headache. After a couple hours online, the headache had become real, accompanied with nausea.

No, there was no New Year's Eve partying, other than ingesting an abundance of boiled shrimp, so it wasn't a hangover. Dehydration, maybe.

But either way, back to bed I went.

Sometime in the afternoon, after the wife returned from dropping off eldest son at the theater for the matinee showing of The Last Samurai, I heard mention that the power was off.

Well, middle of the winter, that can be a concern, but I was snug and cozy in bed, so it mattered not to me.

I awoke again later, to a darkening room. Sun was going down. And there were no lights in the house.

If I was gonna shower and shave, best get to it. Which was accomplished by mini-Mag light. By the time I was out, youngest son had added light to the living room.

Although, I suspect having a heat source directly below the thermostat probably would have given us a pretty chilly house in short order.

Wife called the power company, and sat frustratingly long listening to their taped message.

Power out to 12,000 customers. Hope to have all restored by 19:00.

There goes the ham dinner the wife had planned for us all. And the pies were already half baked in the oven. Also threw in doubt our plans for the evening, which was to see The Last Samurai ourselves, since it was leaving town after tonight. But youngest son reported part of town still had power so, as we had to go in to pick up eldest son anyway (power went off a couple times, requiring them to restart the movie, but otherwise all was well at the theater), we might as well go in to eat.

Wife had fun applying makeup by flashlight...

while the heelers had a hard time understanding why it was dark, and why we were leaving them behind in a dark house.

Even weirder to step outside onto a darkened street, with the generator-driven lights of the refinery casting odd shadows on the snowdrifts and vehicles.

No lights on the interstate, either, but we did pass a powertruck of men working on the line along the old highway. It was an odd power outage, though. Business districts well lit and open, and the homes behind them dark and powerless. No street lights in most of town, but a few sections perfectly fine. Street lights and stoplights that were dark and nonfunctional, but the Christmas lights hanging on the same poles bright and shining.

Weird.

Considerable tension in the vehicle on where to dine. Youngest son rooting for McD's, wife preferring a sitdown at a restaurant. But her choice was out of power and closed. Youngest son proposed a compromise of SubWay, which was happily received, and happily open. The manager and her helper overwhelmed with powerless, hungry people (the gal at the counter announcing to all that our little community must be out of power, too, 'cause here we were).

Power returned while we ate, the stoplights and streetlights all on, as well as the living room and bedroom lights at home.

Which must have freaked out the heelers just a little, because they were quite happy to see us. Imagine all the clicks and snaps of VCRs, DVDs and TVs coming back on probably added to the shock of having lights come on, with no one there.

Ghosts!.

No wonder they were happy to see us.

Made the 8:30 showing of The Last Samurai just a little late (which Chuck has to find more than a little confusing... I mean, we fight for every second at the end of the movie, but miss the first few minutes? No wonder he doesn't take our concerns about watching the credits seriously.) 'Course, it didn't help that Chuck chose this evening to discuss eldest son's lack of school or work, or plans for any future, as well as his concerns for his own two sons as we bought the tickets.

The Last Samurai?

Good movie. Glad we saw it in a theater. Predictable, except maybe for a few things at the very end. Wife read some reviews afterwards, and complained that some critic called it a remake of Dances With Wolves, yet I was thinking the same thing in the middle of the film. Same plot, just a different locale and tribe. And less than top quality graphics on some simulated scenery and army scenes. And the conclusion of the climactic battle scene was more than a little unbelievable, and close to stupid. Yet had tears on the wife's face.

Yeah, I'd go again if it hadn't left town.