Disconnected

I've been disconnected today. The electricity was off when we woke up which of course meant we were also without cable and Internet. We asked around in our neighborhood and no one else had electricity either. We managed to heat water on the gas stove and make coffee and make some toast. At 10:00 AM....still no electricity.

By this time I'm really feeling deprived, really deprived. How can I survive with out my email? without reading my blogs? Without checking out the headlines? We don't have any idea what is going on and calling CFE, the electric company only results in a busy signal. And no one is answering at the cable company.

I decide to head out do an errand rather than sit around. As I walk past the Pemex Station on Ancha I see the CFE truck and they are putting in a new major cement light pole. The old one is on the ground and is broken in half. Wires are down. The new pole is suspended by a crane and the men are working around it. There are no men working signs, no barricades, nada. People are sitting outside of the shops by where they are working on the pole, cars are going within 10 feet of the work area and if something should happen and the pole fell someone(s) would be squashed flat. OSHA would not be happy with this work site.

I go on and do my errand and on my return I cross over to the side of the street where the work is still continuing. I can't figure out what happened to the pole that was there. Did it get hit and broken in half. Is it being replaced and if it is, why did they cut it off at about the ground level? Just before I get to where they are still trying to maneuver the pole into a hole and get it upright, I see that about 8 men from the cable company have cables stripped and each one is holding a wire from the wrapped cable. I don't have a clue what they are doing but they seem to know what they are doing. Since all the Mexicans are sitting around, within squashing distance, watching what is happening, I decide to make a run for it and I stay on that side of the street and walk "under" the suspended new pole.

When I get home, Ned has talked to CFE and they said that the electricity will be on in a couple of hours and sure enough it came on. I told him that I thought the cable situation looked a little more complicated and I doubted it would be on any time soon. In the afternoon he finally got hold of the cable company and they told him that it would be on in 2 or 2-1/2 hours. In about 3-1/2 hours we finally had cable and Internet again.

I'm relieved. I'm connected again. Being disconnected made me realize that I really, really would miss being connected.