Friday night. Kick back, enjoy some quality time with Courtney. Hit the sack around 11. A diesel sounding truck pulls into the alley right under our apartment window. We are on the 2nd floor of a 4 story complex. The truck idles for a long time. We end up falling asleep to the smell of diesel and the muffled roar of the idling automobile. 2:30am. We are snapped awake by the idling truck, men shouting, and loud hammering. Court looks at the clock to find the power has gone out. This is not good considering she had to get up at 6am and the alarm clock was out. A quick 2:30am call to the apartment “on duty” person illuminates the situation. Xcel Energy has decided to take the time over the night to fix something. That’s all great and well but it sure would have been nice to have known. Good thing the loud hammering woke us up. The gentleman assured me that the power would be back by 7am….5 hours later. Turns out at 2:30am the power had already been out for 2 hours. The rest of the night is spent tossing, turning, and cursing at the idling truck and 2 working Xcel employees and 6 non-working “managerial” Xcel employees. Court leaves for work at 7am, getting maybe 3 hours of rest. The power is still out. I doze in and out of consciousness. I’ve grown used to the droaning of the outside. I actually find the fuel smell enticing now. It gives me a headache. 9:30am, and I quote, “OH! Here’s the switch! Who whoulda thought? It’s up here on the terrace.” Pop, lights back on. 9 hours without power. Many groceries now spoiled. ~simmer~