Power outage? Not with a generator

Last Thursday, at approximately 7 p.m., the power in my house – indeed in much of my small town – went out thanks to a snowstorm that dumped two feet of the wet-and-heavy version of the white stuff on trees and power lines, taking down quite a few of both. I lit a fire and some candles and took out the Monopoly board.

Friday morning, with the power still out and no school, I told my kids to settle in for the day. It was 55 degrees in the house. They played in the snow. I lit another fire, rigged up a very crafty version of my mom's old Chemex coffee maker with a funnel and a mug, and boiled some water (thank goodness for gas stove tops), then settled in with The Girl Who Played With Fire.