🇺🇸 2021 February 15 🇺🇸

Monday, February 15, 2021
🇺🇸 Presidents Day 🇺🇸

Weather Still the Big News

At 8:30 a.m. it was 50° in the apartment. The rolling blackouts are going 2 hours off, 2 hours on, and repeat, or so I’ve been told.

We sat in the lobby playing Fast Track. About ten o’clock ee were talking to Arik about the weather and power outages, when he said, “Power just went out again.” About a minute later our power went down also. About 1:30 p.m. it came on again. Power went out again at 8 o’clock TONIGHT. On again at 10:45.

When I made these “buddy burners” out of tuna cans, corrugated cardboard, and candle wax; I never envisioned using them like this. But I heated some survival chilli while the electric stove wasn’t available because of the rolling power outages.
My improvised stove is the buddy heater under an upside down wok-type pan that I balanced on 2 cans so the wok wouldn’t smother the flame. The wok pan has a heavy gauge flat bottom that became the perfect heating element on which to set my pan of chilli.

Just as the chilli was done cooking over my improvised “stove”, the electricity came back on.
As soon as we were done eating, I cooked spaghetti and put it in the refrigerator. That way I have another meal prepared if they take the power down again. Cold spaghetti is better than not eating, and if we have power, it can be microwaved.
After the spaghetti was taken care of, I cooked a pan full of rice. We have milk and sugar to eat with the rice for breakfast hot or cold. If we have power, the rice can be served with some canned beef and mixed veggies.