Fire Drill, (Almost) Flaming Cat Tail, Cold Wind & Soup

Are any of you in an area being affected by Hurricane Sandy?  I suppose the more appropriate question would be are any of you NOT in an area being affected by Hurricane Sandy?

We’ve had a VERY windy past few days, and it has been cold; very, very cold.  I realize that we’re fortunate and I shouldn’t complain, but I do miss the warmer weather.  Our area has had some power loss, but we’ve been lucky so far.

The wind has been blowing lots of things around; we’ve lost a Halloween decoration, lost some branches, and gained a bunch of leaves.  I think the branches and leaves are a pretty fair trade, so nothing to complain about there. 

The building I work in lost power yesterday afternoon, so we were able to go home an hour early.  We apparently lost power at home at some point (the digital clocks were flashing when I got home yesterday), but it was back on by the time I came home from work.  Some of the traffic lights were out on way home, but were working again by this morning.  It seems that the utilities people are doing an amazing job keeping things up and running here.

I decided that this was the perfect weather to try a new soup recipe.  Soup is just so perfect for cold nights, and I thought there was a reasonable chance we’d end up with company due to power outages, or end up at my husband’s grandparents’ house if we lost power (they live on the opposite side of town, so we were going with the thought/hope that at least one household would have power).  So a big pot of soup seemed like a good idea.

I found this recipe for Beer & Cheese Soup.  It was delicious!  We didn’t have Dijon Mustard, so I left that out.  I also added one extra cup of cheese.  I thought it was a little on the salty side, but my husband didn’t.  I think I’ll use half the salt the recipe calls for when I make it again, but it was still fabulous.  It makes a lot, so it’s great for a crowd, and re-heats well.  I didn’t serve it with popcorn either, just bread. 

We have turned on the heat in both parts of the house now that it is so cold.  We have a room that’s an add-on, so it’s not part of the central heating and cooling system.  It has a wall heater that is natural gas.  It isn’t pretty, but it keeps that room very warm, and my husband says it will work if we lose power.  We plan to eventually replace it with some sort of gas logs fireplace type thing. 

It turns out that “eventually” may need to come sooner than we thought.  Tara was walking around the heater last night (it’s next to the cabinet we keep their food in) and brushed her tail into it.  Her tail was on the flame!  It was one of those heart-stopping, I can’t believe this is happening moments.  We both just knew she was going to catch on fire.  She scares so easily and always runs when she’s scared, so we were terrified we wouldn’t be able to catch her quickly.  Somehow, she didn’t catch on fire.  Her tail wasn’t even singed.  I think it took some years off both our lives, but she is fine.  We turned it down to the lowest setting, so there was less of a flame, for the rest of the night.  We also locked all of the fur kids out of that room. 

I’ve been emailing my husband various fireplace screens that I’ve found online.  We will probably be ordering one tonight.  I don’t know if we can take another close call like that.  We have to keep the fur kids safe. 

This morning they apparently decided to make us pay for the extra hour off yesterday.  We had a fire drill shortly after 8:30.  I have no idea why they picked a day when it was 34 degrees and windy for the fire drill, but they did.  We spent about 15 minutes standing outside shivering and complaining.  I think we made it back inside in a lot less time than it took us to leave the building!

Here’s wishing for warm, sunny days for everyone.  I hope you’re all staying safe and doing well during the storm.