La versión en español está después de la versión en inglés.
Question: How many Spaniards does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Answer: Juan.
Question: How many Portuguese does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Answer: One Brazilian.
I’m sorry. So sue me. After 15 hours without power and not a lot of sleep because Dudo threw up twice during the night and of course we both had to try our mobile phones and ponder the darkness each time after one of us held the flashlight (torch) while the other cleaned up the mess, I’m a bit slap happy.
The power went out at 12:30 Monday afternoon and came back to our block at 3:30 this morning. I was standing on the terrace noticing that there were lights on in scattered areas across the Paseo, and as I watched street lights came on down below us. I turned back inside to hear the refrigerator beeping that it needed to be reset. Then the washing machine started up again. It was mid cycle when the power went out. We had unplugged and switched off surge protectors, so we went around the house getting things going and hoping we wouldn’t again lose power. It’s now nearly nine hours later. The dishwasher is going. Our new stovetop was delivered and the plumber will find a time to install it. After this, I’ll head up to the roof to hang the laundry. One bit of happy excitement, without light pollution the city sky was filled with stars. I saw the Big Dipper!
There’s still no determination, that we know of, on what caused the outage that shut down all of Spain and Portugal and, for a short time, part of southern France. There’ve been some theories, all of which have been denied by the authorities reported to have mentioned them. So, we’ll just wait. We immediately wondered, as did several of our friends, if it was a cyber attack. We initially had mobile connections and could get news updates and check in with friends, but that went after a few hours. That’s when San Geraldo’s stress level began to climb. It wasn’t the greatest of evenings or nights. I did announce that if this was in fact the end of the world, I was going to open the liquor cabinet and have myself a good old time. That made SG laugh.
While finding things to fill my time before it was too dark to do much of anything, I did some repair work. I used some Loctite SuperGlue on a strip of wood. The wood soaked up the glue. What it didn’t soak up dripped down my thumb without my realizing it. The wood stuck to my thumb. My thumb stuck to my finger. The glue tube stuck to my hand. When I tried to remove it, both hands stuck together. I turned on the water in the kitchen, with both hands, and scrubbed with a rough sponge. That helped but I was left with a coating of glue on my thumb and finger tip. Skin on my hand actually folded over and got stuck to itself. I scrubbed some more. About an hour later, I was able to peel a coating of glue from my thumb which looks like it had a cosmetic peel. Do I dare try it on my face.
Pregunta: ¿Cuántos españoles se necesitan para cambiar una bombilla?
Respuesta: Juan.
Pregunta: ¿Cuántos portugueses se necesitan para cambiar una bombilla?
Respuesta: Un brasileño.
Lo siento. Pues demándenme. Después de 15 horas sin luz y sin dormir mucho porque Dudo vomitó dos veces durante la noche y, por supuesto, los dos tuvimos que usar nuestros móviles y meditar en la oscuridad cada vez, después de que uno de nosotros sostenía la linterna mientras el otro limpiaba, estoy un poco feliz.
Se fue la luz a las 12:30 del lunes y volvió a nuestra manzana a las 3:30 de esta mañana. Estaba en la terraza, notando que había luces encendidas en zonas dispersas del Paseo, y mientras veía cómo se encendían las farolas abajo. Me volví adentro y oí el pitido del frigorífico, que indicaba que había que reiniciarlo. Entonces la lavadora volvió a arrancar. Estaba a mitad de ciclo cuando se fue la luz. Habíamos desenchufado y apagado los protectores de sobretensión, así que recorrimos la casa poniendo en marcha todo con la esperanza de no volver a quedarnos sin luz. Han pasado casí nueve horas. El lavavajillas ya está funcionando. Nos entregaron la cocina nueva y el fontanero encontrará un momento para instalarla. Después, subiré a la azotea a tender la ropa. Un poco de alegría y emoción, sin contaminación lumínica, el cielo de la ciudad estaba estrellado. ¡Vi la Osa Mayor!
Todavía no se ha determinado, que sepamos, la causa del apagón que paralizó toda España y Portugal, y durante un breve periodo, parte del sur de Francia. Ha habido algunas teorías, todas desmentidas por las autoridades que supuestamente las mencionaron. Así que, simplemente esperaremos. Inmediatamente nos preguntamos, al igual que varios de nuestros amigos, si se trataba de un ciberataque. Al principio teníamos conexión móvil y podíamos estar al día con las noticias y charlar con amigos, pero eso desapareció al cabo de unas horas. Fue entonces cuando el nivel de estrés de San Geraldo empezó a subir. No fue la mejor de las tardes ni de las noches. Anuncié que si esto era realmente el fin del mundo, abriría el mueble bar y me lo pasaría genial. Eso hizo reír a SG.
Mientras buscaba cosas para entretenerme antes de que oscureciera demasiado, hice algunas reparaciones. Usé Loctite SuperGlue en un listón de madera. La madera absorbió el pegamento. Lo que no absorbió se me escurrió por el pulgar sin que me diera cuenta. La madera se me pegó al pulgar. Mi pulgar se pegó al dedo. El tubo de pegamento se me pegó en la otra mano. Al intentar quitármelo, se me pegaron las dos manos. Abrí el grifo de la cocina con ambas manos y froté con una esponja áspera. Eso me ayudó, pero me quedó una capa de pegamento en el pulgar y la punta del dedo. La piel de la mano se dobló y se pegó. Seguí frotando. Como una hora después, logré desprender una capa de pegamento del pulgar que parecía como si me hubieran hecho un peeling cosmético. Me pregunto si debería probarlo en la cara.
• Un momento antes de que se encendieran nuestras luces.
I should have applied the hair remover to the left side of my thumb, as well.
Debería haber aplicado el depilador también en el lado izquierdo de mi pulgar.
Click the thumbnails to enlarge.
Haz clic en las miniaturas para ampliar.
I personally feel yucky when I have notable hair on my fingers and especially my toes. I know some guys let it grow until you need a hedge trimmer to remove it
-Adam
NEKORANDOM.COM
Adam,
My hairy arms, legs, and hands make applying moisturizer disgusting. And I need moisturizing! So I trim sometimes too.
This is that rare instance where if this happened to us, Carlos would be you, going around doing what he can and I’d be SG completely stressed out and knowing this was the end.
But, oy, the euphoria of the power coming back on is one amazing feeling.
Bob,
Yes. But it took all day yesterday to recover. Poor SG.
I’ve been wondering bow you fared in the blackout. Hmm, I wonder what caused it. Of course I immediately assume sabotage. Russian! When for all we know it was someone sleepily pushing the wrong button. Boud
Boud,
Oh yeah. The Russians were mentioned a few times. Still no word on what happened.
We wondered how you guys were doing when we heard of the outage through a FB friend now travelling in Spain. Happy all is back to normal…..somewhat.
Yes, wondering what caused this outage……
Jim,
Poor tourists!
Hey Lucy and Ethel, I’m sending you both cyber hugs, I swear, Scoot, you could injure yourself with a cotton ball!
Deedles,
I did once get cotton ball fluff glued all over my hands. Not this time!
Glad to hear you are back among the enlightened. Nail polish remover should dissolve the glue. We are in London.
David,
Oh, yeah, and I always have that on hand. Not. I should though. It’s very useful.
Well it IS scary when all the power goes out over a large area and you don’t know why. We are so very vulnerable when it comes to power outages and that could be so easily weaponized. Add in lack of cell or internet communication and we’re back in the stone age, basically.
So yeah. I’m team SG with this one.
However, when it comes to Super Glue- you have perfected my own technique of using it. That stuff is evil when it goes where it shouldn’t, which in my case is always. And pro tip: Don’t get any on the wood top of a kitchen island unless you want a permanent shiny spot that you will eternally be trying to clean off.
Your Klutzy Friend…Ms. Moon
Ms. Moon,
We had regular power outages in Fuengirola. This is our first here. Go big or go home. Oops we are home. Fortunately the super glue didn’t drip on the wood floor below. I caught the entire tube on my hand! You and I would have a great time together.
Doing crafts!
Yes, I heard about the big power outage in Spain and Portugal and wondered how you guys were getting on. A cyber attack was my first thought too. Let us know if they ever find out (or admit) what happened!
Debra,
The jury is still out but they keep saying it wasn’t a cyber attack.
Of course I thought of you immediately when I heard that news, about the power outage. I’m glad it didn’t last longer. Did you lose any of the food in your fridge? I wonder if this is the way of the world in our apparently devolving society — things will work less and less well until we’re all just like the apes at the beginning of “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Steve,
Fruit and veg are fine. Amazingly, yogurt and cottage cheese are fine. But most everyth8ng else is deceased. Fridge was fairly empty. Freezer had a lot of meat. Oh well. A friend was talking yesterday about how we have to be prepared for war and living without anything. I realized if it comes to that I’m done.
“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.” – Terry Pratchett
It gave us a bit of a scare, too, as we began to hear about all the disruption at the airports – knowing that we’ll be flying to Malaga this weekend! Glad to know it’s all resolved now.
Jx
Jon,
It must have been awful traveling Monday. Glad you weren’t in the middle of that. Excellent and depressing quote.
I wondered if this had affected you or not. But nothing wrong with being in the dark. Knowing me I got caught up on my sleep.
Mistress Borghese,
Poor San Geraldo. It was a rough day and night. It took a day to recovery and all is well now.
I thought of y’all immediately when my husband told me about the outage. I wondered about cell service. Odd that you had it for a while, then lost it.
Kelly,
We were surprised to have service at all given how overloaded the systems were. Grateful for those first few hours or we might have thought the absolute worst.
Oh, I bet it felt quite ‘The Last of Us’ for many people. My friends in Zaragoza told me it was chaos. I would have thought ‘cyberattack’ myself. Right away. Cause I’m paranoid.
XOXO
Sixpence Notthewiser,
We never left the house so didn’t see the worst, except for the traffic down below in the afternoon. However traffic cops did an amazing job there. It’s a busy boulevard. I’ve read it was a nightmare in bigger cities. Madrid was awful. We did bit worry about cyber attack. Many people are still suspicious. We should know… someday. Because SG was really suffering, I stayed upbeat.
All power outages are scary and stressful — especially in winter. I once had to put on multiple layers of socks, clothes and blankets and take refuge in bed to keep from freezing when the power went out for almost 8 hours one January! Now I keep a fully charged LED head lamp (like what hikers & cavers use) for blackouts as it provides great light, is hands-free and eliminates danger from lit candles. I hope you, SG, Moose and Dudo are all feeling better today!
Tundra Bunny,
Glad it didn’t happen in summer when the temps can be above 40C. In California we always had emergency kits at work and at home. Earthquakes. We realized we need to be more prepared here. We had next to nothing. No matches. Only one lighter and it died after I lit two candles. No battery or crank up radio and lamps. No emergency candles. Only our decorative tapers. No first aid kit. A wake up call. Today is a better day!
It looks romantic with no light. All this is very strange, we have not heard either what was the cause of this power failure. I understand that London also had some kind of failure. Time to go back to candles and oil lamps and going to bed at sundown. Happy to see you came out well. In PEI we use liquor to help on all manner of situation, an old Island tradition.
Larrymuffin,
I haven’t heard about a failure in London. I do find it relaxing when power is off. No electrical hum. But I wouldn’t have been relaxed had it rolled into a second day.
Neither did I, and live here. There was a fire at a substation in West London, but disruption was localised. Jx
Jon:
Thanks for that. Now I don’t have to look it up.
Oh, gracious, I’m so glad to see that your power is back.
Your glue story was a hoot (easy to say since it wasn’t my skin).
Big Dipper!!? Cooooool!
J Chabot,
Do you see a starry sky where you are? For me, it was like magic. Haven’t seen that for a while.
I remember the 2003 blackout which ranged from Cleveland to parts of the Eastern Seaboard (including New York City.) An investigation showed that it was a result of a software bug in an Akron-based utility company’s control room.
I recall having to throw out a lot of food from the fridge.
Kirk,
We were in California in 2003. I had forgotten about that blackout. I only remember earthquakes. Yeah, the freezer is emptied of all the meat!