Chances Are!

Continued from yesterday….

Sunday afternoon Kinky called me, from the big H-E-B, in Kerrville, to see if our electricity was on yet. After I gave him the bad news about us still not having power, he told me that he had to do a telephone interview, at 7:15 and he asked me if he could use our phone. And of course, my answer was yes.

Kinky drove over here, at 6:55 and Tony and I were outside, sitting in rockers, underneath a shade tree, in my pink cabin’s front yard, because it was so hot inside The Cabin, even with all of the windows opened.

After greeting him I warned him about The Cabin being so hot, as we headed for The Cabin. Then our phone rang and it was the interviewer calling, off-air, to make sure that Kinky was ready to be interviewed.

While Kinky was being interviewed he sat, in one of our barstools, at the breakfast bar, with Tony and I sitting in our chairs, listening to Kinky do another one of his great interviews.

About mid-way through Kinky’s 45 minute interview Tony came over and whispered in my ear, “I’m going to drive up to the top of the Kerrville Pass and call Bandera Electric, again.” Then he exited The Cabin. And then Kinky finished his interview and exited The Cabin, too.

Then Tony and I spent another hot, sweaty evening just staring into the fake candlelight and the battery-operated lanterns that once again lighted up our lives.

Monday morning, we still did not have power, so Tony called Jim, in Kerrville to see if had heard any news about the weather.

 Jim was very helpful, because while he was talking to us he got on the Internet and went to the Bandera Electric’s website.

Jim told us that it showed that there were over 140 outages in our area. The crews, at the PEC (Pedernales Electric Co-op) had come to help the crews at BEC fix the outages and that a crew had been assigned to us. Finally, we had heard some good news and it lifted our spirits.

Around 11:30, we decided to go to Kerrville to buy some bread, bottled water, dog food, etc. So Tony called Jim, “Hey Jim. If you’ve got a gas mask, would you like to meet us for lunch, at the Hat?” Then Tony laughed.

“No,” I chimed in, in the background. “We don’t stink, Tony.”

“Nance said to tell you that we don’t stink,” Tony said, followed by a chuckle. “We took sponge baths a little while ago. Okay, we’ll meet you there, around 12:30. And yes, we still don’t have any electricity.”

As Tony and I were driving out, a BEC crew was driving in and they pulled over and stopped to talk to us. And the nice man told us that they had just finished patrolling our line and they were ready to connect us up! And that made us really happy.

We had a fun lunch with Jim. Then we quickly went straight to the small H-E-B, in the adjacent parking lot and bought some supplies. And before left the parking lot I called our phone to see if we had electricity, yet. When I heard my recorded voice message saying, “Rescue ranch...” I hung up and then said, “Tony, we’ve got electricity! Thank goodness.”

As soon as we got back home, we climbed out of Buttermilk and could hear our central air conditioning unit purring and saw that our front porch light was on. And when we walked inside The Cabin, to our delight, we heard the sweet sound of the refrigerator humming, the ceiling fans were spinning and it felt much cooler than it had been.

After we had unpacked everything and put it away, we turned on all of the faucets to get the air out of the lines. Then I started a load of laundry, washed our dirty dishes, took showers and I have never had so much fun, because the BEC had literally lit up our lives. Thanks to the dedicated, hard working folks, at the Bandera Electric Co-op.

Today has been great even though we’ve had a few thunderstorms. And that’s about it for today except I want to share a true, but funny quote that my dear friend Mari found and e-mailed to me this morning, because it made me laugh out loud. Here's the quote:

"If, after the age of 50, you wake up in the morning and nothing hurts, chances are you died during the night.”

Y’all have a great evening and keep on laughing!