The Highlights and Lowlights of Having No Lights

Brought to you by Hurricane Beryl

Monday, July 8

Lowlight: Hurricane Beryl knocked out our power on Monday morning at 5 AM. Sugar Land has actually fared relatively well during recent natural disasters, so I guess it was due to be our turn.

Highlight: It rained most of the day, so at least the house didn’t get too hot. We also had normal cell reception (I later learned others in the area did not) which allowed me and Erik to communicate with our coworkers and neighbors and check up on friends.

Highlight: In the afternoon, we taught Augustine how to play Go Fish. We played with all our cards facing up, a necessary adjustment as Augustine did not fully understand the rule of only being able to ask for cards he already has.

Lowlight: The dinner I planned to have with my old youth discipleship group girls on Monday night had to be cancelled. That was pretty disappointing. They’ve just graduated from college (crazy!) and I hadn’t expected all four of them to come back to Houston this summer, so I had been really excited. I’ll definitely still meet up with whoever is still in town after this, but it will no longer be everyone.

Highlight: After Augustine went to bed, I took a drive to check out the state of businesses and fast food joints near us (all closed except for one Whataburger that had a huge line) and to charge my phone. And also my Steam Deck, because priorities.

Lowlight: Except it turned out my Steam Deck did not charge, because the USB-C to USB-A cable I used was defective.

Highlight: I was about to ask to borrow a cable from our neighbor, since we thought the one we tried was the only one we had, when Erik found another one, from our never-been-used Chromecast. We successfully used it to charge Erik’s phone, which, I guess, is more important than my Steam Deck.

Tuesday, July 9

Lowlight: While not having electricity on Monday was bearable, it quickly became clear that Tuesday would be rough.

Highlight: Thankfully, Erik’s grandma, who lives in Cypress, had power. So we packed up and drove to her house. It was really nice to get to spend some unexpected time with her.

Lowlight: Gram has a really yappy little dog named Luna.

Highlight: Gram also has a really nice-smelling body lotion.

Wednesday, July 10

Lowlight: Our house still did not have power on Wednesday. I was able to check remotely via the Wyze app, which we use as a baby cam in Augustine’s room.

Highlight: With Augustine’s school also still closed, I decreed that it would be Unlimited Bluey Day. Normally, we watch three or four episodes (each of which is seven minutes long) and call it a day. On this day, I estimate that Augustine watched around maybe 30 episodes in total.

Highlight: Augustine ate a whole apple. It was cute.

Lowlight: The delayed, vague, and inaccurate outage map and useless restoration update emails from CenterPointless.

Highlight: Someone discovered that the Whataburger app could be used as a de facto outage map.

Lowlight: While we were grateful to have a place to stay until our power came back, none of us slept great over the two nights we were at Gram’s. On Tuesday, Augustine fussed a bit after we put him down, but at least it didn’t last long. On Wednesday, however, he was so upset that Erik and I ended up sitting in his room with him until he fell asleep. We never do this, but this week was weird for everyone.

Thursday, July 11

Highlight: Both Augustine’s school and my office announced that they had power back and were open! I dropped Augustine off at school, went to check on the house and change into work clothes, and went to the office.

Lowlight: The house was too hot, but the office was still too cold. Also, a big tree next to my building fell over in the hurricane.

Highlight: I checked the Wyze app again as I was leaving work and saw that our power had come back at 3 PM! I picked up Augustine from school and drove back to Cypress. We ate dinner, packed and cleaned up, and said goodbye to Gram.

Lowlight: After we put Augustine to bed, Erik and I turned our attention to our fridge and chest freezer. They had been out of commission for almost three-and-a-half days. We briefly debated keeping some frozen food items but ultimately decided to just throw everything in the freezers away.

Highlight: It was a shame, but it also felt liberating. We bought our chest freezer about three years ago and had never defrosted it, so we took the opportunity to do so. Looking at our emptied and cleaned freezer and chest freezer, I felt like there was so much potential, like now, I can imagine what can be, unburdened by what has been.

Highlight: I have a renewed sense of appreciation for our house. All things considered, our experience wasn’t terrible. We are very fortunate that the extent of our loss was food. Thank God for keeping us safe.