So.., last night (Friday), we spent the evening at home, K was away on the road. The power had been on and off most of the day. Luckly when it did come on I quickly made dinner. Ish and Idreis went to basketball practice by taxi at 6:45, when they came home at 9pm, it was to a dark apartment, with two candles lit in the living room, thanks to the lighter from the doorman. They all slept on the floor in the livingroom, snuggled all together like a pack of baby wolves. I think I sang about 20 lullabies last night, of course they were all scared but I reassured them it was no different then when they stay up late watching movies in the dark.. they did not buy that.. Why would they, no television was on. I thought to myself that I need to go ahead and make a children's cd with all that singing. It was fun singing in the dark to candlelight. Made me feel important. The heat at least is on because it is gas I suppose.. if you even want to call it heat. I wore gloves around the apartment most of the day.. cold. drafty and windows above all the heaters, what kind of sense does that make. Khalid made it home around 3am., still no power. I woke up at 6am to the lights coming on, quickly took a bath and by 7:30 am they were back off again....
Needless to say, no Saturday morning cartoons.. We spent the morning in the house playing Scrabble, some new card games and just clowning around, without any power. Still very cold in here, although the heat is on??? Afternoon came and we decided to walk up to Athina which is a Greek restaurant, maybe 5 buildings up from us. Before we went, the children and Khalid played in the snow (I will post pics and video tmrw). They had a lot of fun with each other and as Inayah remarked, " This is NariBears first time seeing snow". It was snowing while we walked, not much but enough that you had to dust off every 10 minutes. Lunch was good and the children enjoyed. Isa made sure to re-give Khalid's directions about when the bread came to only take one, " Guys.. guys.. only take one bread. Inayah, you get one bread, Idreis you get one bread, me get two and Ibrahim you get one bread, and Ish you get two". We all cracked up. Walked back to the apartment in the snow, power was on when we got back. YEAH!!!!
The power did not last long at all. Maybe 20 minutes... Ibrahim, Ishmael and I went back out to buy the Wii, not sure why, I guess wishful thinking that the power would come back on... it did not. We stopped at a electronics store and found a universal charger for Ishmael's laptop that actually works, and to our surprise when we went into the store and asked if anyone new English, the guy behind he register nodded and called somebody... Guess who came around the corner? A brother, Ish and I both had a shocked look on our face. His name was Daniel and he is from Liberia, well his father, he has been here his whole life. Very nice young man. Left that shop to go and get the Wii, and then got the boots and belt that I have had my eye on for like 3 weeks now. Back to the apartment... still no electricity. So I feed Inara and then head back out with Idreis and Inayah to go and get some more candles and supplies for dinner. I definently was able to get my excercise tonight so that was nice after being in the house for the past 2 days.. Kids are out of school now for the next three weeks, but we will be doing homeschool for sure.. I cooked chicken vegetable soup for the first time, it turned out pretty good, Isa fell to sleep at the table. Electricity still out.. we all ate candlelight together that was nice. The kids all played hidenseek in the dark with Khalid while I was cooking, so they were all running around screaming in the dark for a good hour. Inayah helped me cut up all the vegetables.
At about 10:30pm maybe later, the power finally came back on. I'm not sure that I believe that it will stay on, but while it is I thought I better check my emails and jump online. Thank the lord for some, power to the people.
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