Posts Tagged ‘My House’

Powerless

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Okay, so I’m an idiot.  I received my electricity bill from Southern California Edison, set it aside with a thought to look at it again as the due date got closer, then put something on top of it, then something on top of that.

This morning at about eleven am, while composing a Tweet (yes, I Tweet.  Don’t you?) to a fellow writer, the power went off.  At first I thought it must be the whole building, so I sat for a few moments listening for any of my neighbors who might be coming out to see what was up.  No one seemed to be coming out.  Then I remembered the Edison bill.  Damn.

My phones are Internet based, so, without the modem and router, I couldn’t call out.  My cell phone is old, needs a new battery, so I knew it would die before I actually reached someone to pay the bill, so I went out to my car, plugged the phone into the cigarette lighter adapter and called.  They said the lights would be on in between three and six ours.

I spend my life at the computer.  I spend my life on the Internet.  It is where most of my business is conducted, most of my socializing is at least initiated, most of my creativity happens and most of my communication with the world takes place.  The soft hum of the hard drive and fans in the computer is a constant companion, so much so that, like an old lover, I have become oblivious to it’s presence.  It was suddenly very quiet.  Even with the street noises, and I live on a major boulevard with much traffic, it was quiet.

After calling Steve (the business/writing partner, for those of you who don’t keep up) to let him know not to come in, and to call the answering service occasionally, I picked up a book and started reading.  The blinds were open, as was the front door, and the light was bright and natural, riding in on a cool spring breeze.  At first I felt guilty.  Not, as you might expect, because of the “not paying the bill” thing.  I felt guilty because I wasn’t working.  I wasn’t writing.  I wasn’t doing things that would bring in money.

After a small while, I realized that the guilt was pointless, that I might as well decide to take advantage of the day.  Several pages into the book that has been long wanting to be read, (one by Orson Scott Card, one of my favorites SF authors) I decided to move out to the chair on my front stoop.  I actually finished the book.  I took in the sky.  I listened to the street noises.  I chatted with my neighbors, something I used to do a lot but hadn’t seemed to find the time for, lately.  I finished another (very short) book, and realized it was getting dark and cold so I came inside to reflect on the day.  I don’t often take an entire day off.  Even when I decide to take the day off, I check my email several times, jot notes, surf the web.  I’m never, it seems, idle or contemplative for any sustained length of time.

Being forced to simply not go on the computer, being forced to not spin my wheels, to sit, read and think, was an amazing experience.  No one needed my attention that quickly, nothing needed to get done, tasks that were there in the morning would still be there tomorrow morning and no one was injured or died because I didn’t get to them.  At about nine pm the power finally came back on.  It was a wholly wonderful day.

So, of course, as soon as the power was back on, I turned on the computer and wrote a blog about it.

_______________________________
Geoff Hoff is co-author of the best selling satirical novel Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend

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Posted in Essay, My Life | 7 Comments »

House of Sand and, Well, Sand

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

I recently moved from a little guest house that I’d been living in for fifteen years to a two bedroom house with a great, rustic, overgrown back yard complete with brick patio covered with wood trellising, a quaint seventies type rock fountain and a kidney shaped pool. Just to the side of the patio is a raised area that could be used as a garden and on the other side is a tiny little pond. The pond had originally been built with a small wooden foot bridge over it. Very quaint.

For some odd reason, the previous tenant decided to fill both the raised garden and the pond with sand and had removed the foot bridge from the pond. The landlady said she’d wanted to make the place look like Tahiti. I thought it just made it look silly, so I made an agreement with the landlady that I’d remove the sand and refill the pond with water if she had the foot bridge replaced.

Two weeks ago I finally got around to begin digging the sand out of the pond. Not sure what to do with the sand once it wasn’t in the pond, I figured I’d just put it in the black trash bin that the city provides for each house in Los Angeles. After a short while, I got tired and my back began to ache, so I gave up for the weekend. The trash bin was only about a quarter full of sand. I get tired very quickly these days, it seems. I guess I am fifty-one after all. I wheeled the bin out front for trash collection day and all was well with the world.

This week, I decided it might be best to just hire a day worker to dig the rest of the sand out. I brought the trash bin out back and in very short order the young fellow had filled it to the brim. I helped him drag it out front for collection day and got out big lawn bags for the rest of the sand. He filled about five or six of them, smartly about a quarter full each so they could be picked up with out bursting. I told him to leave those in the back and I’d decide what to do with them later. He was done with the entire task in about an hour and a half. Clearly, he is younger then I.

While dragging the trash bin out front, I thought it may be way too full and therefor way too heavy. I had a vision of the big forked arm that lifts the trash bins up to empty into the top of the garbage trucks straining, and possibly even breaking, from the weight and strain of it. I considered calling the trash department and telling them there was a bin full of sand and getting their recommendations on disposing of it. I also considered taking some of the sand out so it wouldn’t be too heavy. I didn’t do any of these things.

Driving home from the office last Friday sometime after eight p.m. I wondered what I would encounter. Pulling up to my driveway, what I encountered was the black trash bin tipped on it’s side, sand pouring out of it, one wheel broken off and the lid snapped off and laying in the street. I tried to lift the bin up so I could at least drag it from the curb, but it was way too heavy. I briefly considered just leaving it there and going in to get a stiff drink. Of course, it was kind of hanging over into my neighbor’s driveway, so I couldn’t do that. I thought about just shoveling the sand onto the parking strip so I could lift the bin, but then what would I do with the sand. Again, the whole neighbor thing. I’m new in the neighborhood and want to reveal myself more subtly than that.

Finally, I called my writing partner Steve, who came over and helped me scoop sand out into more lawn bags until the bin was light enough to lift to an upright position and drag up my driveway. (Good old Steve.) We also scooped and swept most of the sand from the parking strip and my neighbor’s driveway. I wonder if they or any of the other neighbors were watching all this. I wonder if they were amused.

Now I have five or so garden trash bags full of sand in the back yard, perhaps ten bags full of sand at the side of my driveway, a broken, city supplied trash bin still a quarter filled with sand at the side of my driveway and I haven’t even begun to remove the sand from the little garden area in back.

And the pond still isn’t a pond. I haven’t put any water in it, yet, because the bottom of it is cracked.

_______________________________
Geoff Hoff is co-author of the best selling satirical novel “Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend“

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