An Interesting Birthday

From Washingtonpost.com

Yesterday I celebrated my 32nd birthday and the day started off wonderfully! Cayne got me a Nook e-reader and made some delicious Cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I got the Nook set-up and registered but hadn't actually downloaded a book yet when we decided to head into Friendship Heights for a little shopping and lunch at Maggiano's.

Lunch was delicious (as usual) but the predicted thunderstorms were on their way by the time we were finished, around 3:30. We then spent about 30 minutes shopping before heading home. I think the main storm hit just as we were heading into the stores...seemed like good timing, in my opinion.

On the drive home, we could tell that a pretty big (but apparently short) storm had hit the area. Trees and branches were down and none of the traffic lights worked. Apparently very few people in the DC-area know to treat darkened intersections as 4-way stops because most people didn't stop at the intersections at all! (Today, reminders are being broadcast on the radio and internet about this so maybe there will be less horn-honking and near-misses). In the end, we made it home to find out that our house was also without power.

So we settled into an electricity-free evening of reading. Having the power out made for a beautiful-looking birthday cake, although the frosting was melting a little. Power is still out at our house, 24 hours later. Read more about the storm and the aftermath here -- there are also photos of the storm. The power company hopes to have power back on by tomorrow night so it looks like we will have one more night sans air conditioning. Luckily, it is not too hot outside -- the high was only 90 degrees today and the storm did get rid of some humidity. I was lucky enough to get to come into work to enjoy being in the A/C here. It should cool down in the evening, but even 80 degrees in the house (like it was last night) is a little warm for sleeping! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that our power comes back on today, but hopefully I'll be able to download my first e-book by tomorrow night!

On a side-note, this is Little Bit's third power outage in utero. The first was during the February snowstorm (Snowmageddon), the second was when we were in Ohio in June and our hotel power was off for about 3 hours, but this is by far the longest amount of time without power both for him and for me!