cellio | Friday night

What a storm!

Friday I got home a bit after 6. (Should have been earlier, but traffic was really hosed, for reasons unknown to me.) I knew that I had to both cook and take a shower before Shabbat, and if there was time I'd make a quick email pass after that. There was plenty of time.

The sky had been gradually darkening, but I didn't think much of it. They'd been predicting rain -- nothing unusual about that. After getting dinner in the oven and setting up the crock pot for Saturday (I'd cooked the food Thursday night), I hopped into the shower.

Five minutes later, the heavens opened. I wish I'd seen it directly; the bathroom windows are (of course) not transparent. I'm told it was an amazing storm. It certainly sounded like one. I hastened to wash the shampoo out of my hair and get out of the water ASAP. I never really acquired my mother's paranoia about showering (or bathing) during storms in general, but this was not an ordinary storm.

While I was in the process of doing this, our lights flickered twice and then went out for good a couple minutes later. After I dried off and got dressed, and with the lights still out, I decided that I should assume that the power would be out for an unknown and potentially long period of time. I got the computer powered down before the UPS ran out, made some adjustments to the crock-pot timer, moved one light from timer to direct outlet (ok, so my reading lamp would be on for as much of Shabbat as had power; I could live with this), and said to Dani that at least the meat in the oven for tonight was fully cooked and thus safe to eat. This was my first experience with power outages going into Shabbat, and I tried to think about what I'd need.

Davening by candlelight

As the time to leave for services approached we still had no power. Dani had gone out to drive around and look at storm damage, so I lit Shabbat candles but not any others. I know the Shabbat candles are safe to leave unattended; I wasn't going to scatter fire around other rooms. I then walked over to Tree of Life, where I was to lead services.

I walked past lots of downed tree branches (didn't see actual downed trees), and most of the houses I walked past had no lights. Alternate traffic lights were out, which was funky. (Forbes & Beechwood was out, Forbes & Shady was on, Shady & Northumberland was out, Shady & Wilkins was on.) Tree of Life was dark.

I walked in to find the assistant rabbi and the gabbai carrying siddurim (prayer books) from the chapel to the lobby. Someone was setting up folding chairs near the (glass) front door and the only functioning emergency light. The senior rabbi was walking around inspecting the state of the emergency-lighting system; lots of lights that were supposed to be on weren't. Whee.

That one emergency light wasn't putting out that much light, and there was no way that everyone could gather around it anyway. I asked the assistant rabbi if the building contained (1) candles and (2) someone who hadn't accepted Shabbat yet (it was not yet sundown), and he found some of each. That got us a couple dozen lit candles, which helped.

Meanwhile, this weekend that congregation was celebrating a bar mitzvah. This meant that (1) the bar mitzvah was leading part of the evening service (they didn't give me a heads-up about that), and (2) there were lots of visitors from out of town there. I felt bad for all of them -- they came here to celebrate a life-cycle event and had to do part of it in the near-dark. And the bar mitzvah himself had been assuming the presence of a microphone, and was having some trouble adjusting to having to project more. Oops. (I, on the other hand, am indifferent to microphones in non-huge rooms. I can fill their chapel with song or trope without mechanical aids.)

Even with the candles and my home-made larger-print siddur, I was a little concerned about my own abilities. However, as we were getting ready to start, someone put a lit flashlight into my hand and I decided to accept that. Technically it was muktzah (an item forbidden to be held on Shabbat), but I had not turned it on (nor would I turn it off), and I was not just participating but leading services, so I thought accuracy was a higher priority than a fence around the Torah. (Or, perhaps, a fence around a fence.)

Services went pretty well (and remarkably well given the circumstances). The bar mitzvah managed pretty well, and several congregants told me later that they hadn't realized how much of the service they had memorized. Sometimes you just don't notice these things until you're in a position where you have to rely on skills you didn't know you had.

I think I ran into another member of Temple Sinai there. (By the time services were over it was fully dark outside, and candlelight wasn't enough for me to identify most people.) He's a student (older than bar-mitzvah age, though), so maybe he knows the bar mitzvah. He didn't ask me why I was moonlighting.

While walking home I saw that most houses had lights, though some traffic lights were still out. We had power, and Dani had apparently decided he wanted hot food because the oven was on. Shrug. The power had been out for about two hours, apparently, so this did not screw up the chicken for Saturday lunch. Whew. We were having guests for lunch, and it would have sucked to feed them cold food.