raincoaster.
I’ve been all over the web lately, mostly in 140-character chunks, which is much easier to handle than full blog posts when you are being a digital nomad. I really DO need to sit down for a good straight eight hours at home and just bully through the internet without looking up, although with no power in my apartment that is not currently possible, particularly as my too-clever-for-his-own-good building manager has disabled both the electrical outlets in the hallway near my apartment. He musta seen me run the extension cord from there the last time this happened…
And Hydro wants an amount greater than the total amount owing as a reconnection fee, to which I say; it’s warm outside, I’ve got a wide selection of nearby cafes with free wireless, and a potbellied stove with plenty of wood, so, like, nyah-nyeah.
And while the blog network for which I am paid to write is no longer down completely, it’s developed some peculiarities which make posting to it somewhat more like playing the lottery than like actual professional, you know, work. On the one blog my posts vanish entirely, while on the other they appear, “disappearing’ my co-blogger’s latest three posts and adding her comments to my post.
Overcoming all odds, including how odd it was to hold a meeting in the ONLY spot in all of the West End without functional wifi, I did manage about three or four thousand words yesterday, on the Shebeen Club and Twitter, liveblogging and live-tweeting the surprisingly-interesting Annual General Meeting of the Federation of BC Writers. And then I came home, thought about trotting out to the courtyard where there IS free wifi but also no power, and went to bed instead.
So how is your weekend going?
raincoaster 
About like yours. Although I do have power. Powerful me.
What did I miss? How come your electricity was cut off?
Whiner. You have a courtyard and a cafe, and I’m out of peanut butter.
Tell you what; you get my power restored and you can have my peanut butter; I buy it by the kilogram.
I let the hydro bill go too long, and then when I had the money to pay it all the shit hit the fan and I just simply didn’t bother; I bailed on pretty much every activity over the past three weeks. If it were thirty bucks to reconnect it, I’d get it done. But it’s $136, and I simply refuse to pay it. I refuse. And, until it turns cold again in October, I don’t actually have to. I’ve got lanterns, extension cords, a laptop, and a darn good cafe four blocks from my house that’s open till midnight. And free wifi in the courtyard, where I can sit at a handy picnic table underneath a sheltering roof, just me and the urban coyotes.
If I weren’t so proud of my coping skills, maybe I’d prevent more crises.
“If I weren’t so proud of my coping skills, maybe I’d prevent more crises.”
Wow. That’s probably the truest thing you’ve ever said. (and good gods, you’ve said a lot!)
:-)
Yep, tis true. I’m about to clean out the fridge and adapt the freezer as an old-fashioned icebox. And pick up another wick for the oil lamp.
Shit, I have the opposite problem. I went on budget billing with City Light, and they calculated the bills on past years. Then they put the new windows in my apartment, and my bills, even in winter, are about a third of what they were. Now I have enough credits to pay your reconnection fee and then some. I think we’ll call and have the budget billing taken off.
Let me tell you how evil BC Hydro is: when I was on welfare and they cut off my power, I was on a monthly flat rate. It remained off for two months in the heart of winter, during which of course I got very sick, and still they wouldn’t put it back on (electric heat, ya know). And they still were going to charge me the monthly fee for those two months.
Until I faxed them from the Pivot Legal Society office. It’s good to have friends.
So now you have power?
no, currently I have the power to have the power restored, but there’s a lag time while they get around to doing it.
Ah, cue days of waiting then!