Ever since meeting the crew twice a day at the Sorrento Mesa food court, I've been discovering quite a few delicious and delightful little shops. Thanks to my CL's recommendation, I tried Donut Touch. With G's name, I managed to get some fresh muffins as opposed to the ones sitting in the case. I also found some fresh Vietnamese sandwiches at a European bakery. It's owned by a Vietnamese family, though the wife told me that if I wanted an Asian cake, I'll have to describe it and they'll try to make it. Anyway, Luis and I also tried Knockout Pizza. It is so great! I think I'm a bit addicted. They serve NY style pizza and I just love the ones with no sauce or white sauce.
Anyway, so yesterday, I was in our afternoon meeting when all of a sudden a bunch of the workers/owners of the stores came out. Someone spoke in Vietnamese. I asked our Vietnamese speaker, "Are they fighting?" He laughed and said, "No. The power's out." Oh.
I left the meeting 15 minutes later and took my usual way home. Just when I managed to turn out of that plaza, I found myself stuck in traffic, also managing to discover the cause of power outage. A white SUV ran into a green electrical box thing (a transformer, I found out later, the function of which is still unknown to me). The crash was pretty bad. The front part of the SUV looked shortened by half, the windshield was blown, the green box itself looked like something bit a chunk out of it. Grey smoke rose from the contact of the two. The police, firefighters, and paramedics were on the scene.
Found out later on the news that the knocked out transformer killed power for close to 1200 residents. The driver either passed out or had a heart attack, or both. He didn't try to brake at all, crossing the medium and plowing headlong into the transformer. Thankfully, it's not a busy street for pedestrians and a mere box stopped him as opposed to something or someone else.
Luis and I had plans to hang out with the Perkins. In fact, he had already left to pick up John from work when I called him and told him what happened. So we decided to switch locations to the Perkins' place instead. Due to work on both sides, we haven't really talked for two weeks, so we had plenty to catch up on.
When Luis and I got home, power was still out. I thought the whole situation was a bit reminiscent of the earthquake, mostly the procurement of emergency supplies, i.e. light source. Anyway, the whole apartment complex was dark. It never occurred to me how many light sources we take for granted and never notice, such as parking lot lights, little path lights, lights shining through blinds. Without all that, the whole complex was eerily quiet and dark. As we walked back, our surroundings seemed to grow darker and I momentarily regretted living on the ground floor underneath a walkway. Both Luis and I talked rather loudly to stave off nervousness. It did not help that he said, "It seems like a perfect setting for a slasher film." I almost kicked him for that had I not been too busy walking, intent on going inside. My one comfort was Butters. I knew he would bark at whatever we can't see.
When we finally made it inside, we immediately lit a bunch of tea lights and candles. Luis debated whether or not to take a shower by candlelight since he can't see very well. I told him that I have to deal with that all the time because my eyes are bad and I can't see anything in the bathroom anyway since I have to take off my glasses before showering. Mostly it's by feel. At night, he didn't want to go to the bathroom to turn off a dripping faucet after we blew out all the candle light. I scoffed at him, proud that years of my pretending to be blind and walking around in the dark at night is finally paying off. It's mostly memorizing the layout of the room before going to sleep, looking for dark and light contrasts, not stubbing anything and fluttering fingertips lightly to figure out where things are. Blind pride.
Power came back on at 3am. And the whole drama over. Still, the night felt extra intimate without light pollution.
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