eleven scenes from a frozen south

1. We woke to US Airways calling, telling us that B's flight out to MSP had been canceled. Charlotte was grounding flights. Savannah was grounding flights. Outside, something that sounded like ice but might have been just pine cones bounced on the roof.

2. I made coffee and pancakes. I took a hot shower. In this way, Wednesday was essentially a Saturday.

3. The power went out as we played Scrabble. Something down the street--a transformer--went blue three times and then silent.

Out in the front yard, a pine branch fell on a cable that ran from the pole to the corner of our house. It wasn't live, but it swayed over the road. In ten minutes, three cars drove into the cable, then panicked, slammed the car into reverse, and backed up. In doing so, they hit the cable twice.

We called the non-emergency police line. We know about the cable, they said. In the hour that it took them to send someone, fifteen more cars drove into the cable, panicked, backed up.

B dragged the recycling bin to the road, in front of the cable. As he did so, a woman in a red Camry slammed on the brakes, honked, threw up her hands. B pointed to the cable. The woman didn't see it. He pointed again. She waved. It was an angry wave.

The third time, she got it.

4. The pines in the backyard looked gray, hung with ice.

5. I desperately wanted beer.

6. I scored two turns of 48 points apiece and still lost Scrabble by 50 points.

7. The police volunteer said, You put this out here? That was a good idea. As he said so, another car nearly hit the recycling bin.

He replaced our bin with two cones and drove off.

8. Friends texted: We have no power, but a fireplace, beer, and hot dogs.

9. On the way over to their place, the lines wrapped twice around each drive-thru.

10. The beer was delicious. We played cards and roasted hot dogs over the fire. The dogs slept on our laps. I was dressed as if it was BockFest, in layers of pants.

11. The power came back on. We left at midnight.

On the way home, cars were lined up at the Wendy's. Each waited for three minutes before realizing that that the employees must have left the lights running when they left during the power outage, hours earlier. Each time a car pulled out, another pulled in, not realizing that no one was working.

Inside, the lights blazed yellow in an empty restaurant.