Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Written Monday, June 8 at 2:something a.m.:

Turns out that one of the guys who lives at the other end of the condo complex is a MIT geek of old and has a smallish workshop set up in his storage space. He’s managed to rig up a generator that runs on an exercise bike so we have some power, even when the electricity is down. Which is pretty much all the time lately. Some of the women have actually taken to signing up for time on it — they miss the gym, which is closed due to lack of electricity. So there was enough leg power to juice up my laptop battery — I have no idea when the internet will be up long enough to upload this, but I’ve got some time to write, anyway.

Where the hell was I? Usually I just check the old entries on the blog, but … anyway….

I think I’d gotten through telling you about the checkpoints. We drove through the backroads and small towns to get to the cabin. And what we saw was pretty damned scary.

About half of the gas stations were boarded up. Way more than just a few months ago. I remember last year, around Memorial Day, hearing that gas stations were closing down and feeling like it was a spooky moment. Driving through NowhereVille, New England, was much spookier. Of the gas stations that were open, about half had “no gas” signs out front.

There weren’t any lines, though. I didn’t think about that until Paul pointed it out. That was pretty scary, too.

As we got closer to the cabin, towns thinned out and Paul and I had a worried conversation about making sure we had enough gas to get there and back to the next filling station. Turns out that the little town we’re outside of had a working station, so we breathed a sign of relief.

The work had actually gone really well on our little cabin. Apparently the fact that we kept the money coming — and the fact that there wasn’t much other work — really inspired these guys to do a good job. It was livable, believe it or not. I mean, it’s a simple little one-room cabin with a loft, so not complex or anything. If I remember my “Little House on the Prairie,” Ma and Pa Ingalls built one in a week with a hand axe and logs. So our guys with their back hoes, power guns, and tables saws were way ahead of the game.

Sorry, I’m rambling a little. It’s the heat, I think.

The really complicated stuff is yet to come — the turbine and the spring house. There’s a little brook that runs fast and cold down the slope that the house is built into. We’re going to put a turbine in there to generate electricity. We’re also going to build a stone spring house — the cold water running over the stone will keep it cool as a modern refrigerator. Well, according to the book I read, it will. I’m not sure when we’re going to get that done. The blueprints for the turbine caused our foreman to scratch his head, but he says he knows a guy who is good with weird-ass yuppie crap (his words, not mine) and he’ll get it up and running by the end of July. The solar water heater went in while we were up there.

God I hope so.

I haven’t gotten to what actually happened in Boston yet. Personally or on a larger scale. I’m not avoiding it… oh, hell. Yes, I am. It’s ugly and it’s depressing.

A thunderstorm is rolling in — I can feel the breeze and smell the rain in the distance. (We’re all out on the deck, sleeping on mats, to keep cool. April is out like a light but I haven’t been sleeping well.) I’m going to shut down and put up the tarp. I hope that a storm means things cool off. Everywhere.

*****

Okay, it’s now Wednesday and we’ve had power all day! And internet for some of it, too! Now that I’ve finished charging anything that takes a battery, I’m going to post this. I mentioned the gas station thing… I can’t find a link from Memorial Day weekend last year, but here’s a link from the L.A.Times about gas stations closing from the high prices! Doesn’t $4/gallon sound heavenly right now?