As I’ve said before, living here is somewhat like living in Nebraska in the 50’s, but last night I got a taste of Mexico in the 50’s – “the night technology failed” and in a matter of seconds we reverted from 2008 back to the 50’s when the electricity went off.

The lightening had been going on all evening, but around 11pm the storm finally struck with a combination of high wind, some small hail and rain, mostly horizontal. I had closed up somewhat earlier and finished the process just as I heard a huge “kaboom” and everything in the area went dark.

I figured a major transformer had blown due to wires slapping together in the high winds and it was gong to be a while before electricity came back on so I turned off the (now useless) switches and headed for bed. Watching the flashing lightening and rain didn’t take long to put me to sleep. However later it became stuffy so I got up and opened the French doors, went back to bed only to be pestered by a mosquito, then more rain, get up close the door, open again later because normally the ceiling fan would be on, but not last night. On one of the “midnight” jaunts I noticed the mansions up on Chula Vista ridge were all brightly lit as usual, they didn’t loose electricity, only us poor folks down here in the ghetto – figures, darn rich people.

The radio normally goes off at 6am, but not this morning and there was no reason to get up before dawn anyway so Max and I slept in until the sunlight and singing birds woke up, about 7:30. I headed for the bath and instinctively reached for the light switch first. As I drink bottled water there was no problem brushing my teeth but as I reached for the faucet to rinse the sink I realized it’s a pressure system and has about 20-30 gallons under pressure (by the now silent pump) before the water tap would go dry without power.

Flushing a toilet is another use of water, so I shut off the supply to the tank, headed out back to my ample backup supply of water – the money pit. For the first time ever, I appreciated the value of the pool, a ready made water supply. Back to the toilet, eco-freaks would probably think this a great lesson as it helps demonstrate the amount of “wasted” water in the old fashioned fixtures still in common use in MX. It takes about 5 gallons per flush so you grab a bucket and haul it upstairs and dump it in the tank. Now at 5 gallons each I figure I have enough for 3,000 flushes, I suspect my knees will give out before the supply and that’s if it never rains again and we’ve had over 9” already this month.

I headed down to feed the cats (and me) and they all eat dry food, so no problem there, electric can opener not needed. I put out fresh bottled water for Max each day and he prefers to drink off the water flowing down the water fountain (?) so no problem there. However I need coffee, fortunately I have a gas stove so I flipped it on – no spark igniter clicking, that’s electrical. I rounded up the butane lighter and boiled up some water and poured it through the coffee maker filter. So far all was going well, no real problem yet although without the radio it was eerily quiet. I started cooking my gourmet breakfast as usual, again no problem as I only needed to unwrap the XXX strawberry breakfast bar. However I could see lunch was going to take some additional creativity as the microwave does require something that was, at that point, in short supply – electricity.

I came back upstairs to have my coffee and contemplate lunch (well, nothing else to do?). I thought about making a sandwich, but that would require opening the refrigerator, but I figured if I choreographed my moves carefully I could minimize the open door time on the frig, you know, open the door and as the right hand is reaching for the bread, the left is opening the meat drawer for the lunchmeat as the right swings the bread out onto the island while the left places the lunchmeat on the counter to the left, then simultaneously the right hand scoops up the mustard, mayo and the right foot closes the door as I pull back, that should work, the ballet of the refrigerator.

Having plenty of time I also contemplated what might be accomplished that didn’t require technology – I made a list:

Swiffer dusters to dust (now that it’s started raining and dusting is actually achieving something)

Windex and paper towels to wash windows (removing residue from spiders making a living on the deck windows and there are apparently several)

Squeegee and bucket of water for outside windows (the house is on an evening flyway from the east end of the lake where the big birds spend the day to the Village where they roost at night and squawk, but it seems they love to lighten their flying loads while gaining altitude and passing over the house and these are BIG birds)

Pool skimmer (me) doesn’t involve electricity

Battery powered blower to clean the decks (but I wasn’t going to waste a battery charge on that, might need the battery for some other vital purpose if this lasts long – of course I could use a broom to sweep the decks? – wonder where that crazy idea came from?)

But those things all looked like work and boring work at that even though needing to be done. But, it occurred to me as I gazed at the pool table it didn’t need any electricity and would be more fun than the other stuff – right? – but maybe not at 8am.

Ultimately I did get into the mood and headed out to the casita to turn off the night lights so when the electricity came back on it wouldn’t be an excessive load. As I walked I was thinking about maybe going shopping or something, but as I looked at the front gate I realized it was electrically driven and while operated by a garage door opener, it was modified and there wasn’t the usual little rope to pull to disconnect the drive mechanism –  then it hit me, I WAS TRAPPED IN MY OWN COMPOUND! – well, not really there is a battery backup on the opener and who knows if it still works, I wasn’t going to test it unless I really needed to get out of Dodge.

The silence was deafening so I opened a box containing cassette tapes I’d made before leaving TX of some of my albums etc. and randomly picked one and loaded it into a little $10 tape walkman and it turned out to be Bob Wills, perfect, I set it on top of the TV and hit “PLAY”. Being old time Country music it sounds best on a cheap little speaker, much like when I used to listen to Hank Williams, I’d divert all the sound to the little front right door speaker so it sounded cheesy and cramped like my old ’50 Chevy with it’s single (bad) speaker would have – things were looking up, I could do this.

I said this was like MX in the ‘50’s or even later, you only had electricity for a few hours a day so you made sure to get done what you needed. Actually in Jocotopec at the west end of the lake they still only pump water during the day, it fills the tinaco’s and aljibe’s and so you have stored water for use at night and on days when the pump isn’t working and yes, that happens.

Back to my current condition, there was no telling how long it would be before they restored power but I wasn’t hurting for anything and then it hit me, today was NASCAR race day – oh oh, this could be more serious than I thought, but the race is later in the day giving the CFE guys time to pipe me some juice hopefully before start of race.

Around 11am I was out puttering around the casita sweeping etc. and happened to look out at the gate and the security flood light was on? – hmm, must have electricity again and sure enough It was only out for about 12 hours. Later I was out there again, the light was still on so apparently the surge last night did something to the sensor, but everything in the house survived pretty well, the computers were contrary and needed some coaxing to get back to normal and the weather station didn’t want to talk to the server to download it’s rain information, but nothing unusual. 

All in all it was interesting to notice how much of our life is electrically and technology driven. We assume so much, there is always power at the flip of a switch, potable water at the turn of a faucet and music at the push of a button and that’s as it should be, we have worked long and hard to bring these things to everyone not just the rich people, but it is also a reminder of what some current politicians policies will bring us if they’re allowed to continue.

Technology Part II, 9:30pm

Well, you made it through last night and this morning with the power failure etc. and silly me, I never never learn, THIS IS MX. So, all things were doing just fine and I watched NASCAR, did some chores, laundry, ran the pool pump (it's mandatory, it's a hidden gringo tax thing) and turned on the casita lights for the night etc. and had settled to watch some TV and eat a gourmet supper which I was preparing about 8:45pm. I had some beans in the microwave and rinsed out the can and hit the garbage disposal and everything went dark? I hustled out to the breaker panel thinking it was that, started throwing breakers etc. - nada. Came back in and of course by now the regulator and UPS backup to the weather computer was beeping madly, I grabbed a tester and headed back out to the breaker box - turns out I apparently lost that main leg of my power so all was down.

By now it was getting dark and everything was by flashlight and the lightening from this evenings offering was approaching. I opted to eat supper cold and then quickly strung a 50' cord out that upper bath window to the pump house which still had juice, plugged it into a multi-tap and started the weather computer again. Then from there another extension to the TV area and of course by now the storm had arrived and the Sat TV was "looking for a satellite" - so, all the hurry scurry was for zip, nada the program I wanted to watch was unreachable. About this time I realized I'd not closed the S side of the house because the storm was coming from the N and I hadn't noticed (I don't see in the dark like Max) that it was blowing in the door(s) and window, so mopped that up and returned to do this little addendum. I realize this is fun and a test of my abilities to not only persevere technically, but to adjust mentally, but the dusty days I loudly complained about for a couple of months are looking realllll good about now!!!!!!!!!!!

PS: it's 9:56 and the TV has come on just in time for me to maybe see the preview for next week, or the very end of this show to ruin it for reruns? - I love this place, but I'm getting cable I think, the heck with Sat TV, besides last night they kept running a crawl across the bottom saying it was flooding in New Rochelle? - wow, that's news I can use in Riberas, MX.