The TV was on. The new lamp was on. The little chain of bubbley celestially shaped lights and the box-shaped lantern with a rotating disc inside so that stars of various sizes and colors display against the translucent walls were both on.

I think the light in the dining room was on, as well as the light in Erin's room. And the porch light.

The central heat, the heater in the bathroom, and the plug-in clocks were all on.

The refrigerator was functioning. Water was electrically-powered through the pipes in the normal way.

Erin and I were having a discussion about sea life in response to the special on the Travel Channel on sea life and on Sea World.

POP! -- a loud noise something like a pop or a bang rang out from across the street. Loud enough to startle us, but so brief it was gone before it had reached our ears.

Nothing was on.

More startling than the noise was the sudden silence, and the flash from the appliances as the lights were suddenly out and the TV flashed off. It was very dark, though not completely. I think Erin and I were attempting to look at eachother -- we'd been making eye contact before the noise, so maybe we still were looking at eachother -- but the 5 or 7 feet of darkness between us allowed me to only see the most vague outline of her very blonde hair against the window -- which was letting in just the tiniest amount of light from the fire station across the street, which still had power, and the street lights a few houses down that were still on. The light in front of our house -- usually providing enough light so that even if all the lights in the house or on the porch are out, we can see our way around fairly well -- had also fallen victim to the popping noise. We didn't realize this just yet, though.

I quickly went to my room to find my flashlight, which fortunately is kept in an open and accessible place for just such an occasion. Meanwhile, Erin found some matches on the window-sill in the living room and began lighting the candles on the bookshelf, coffeetable, shelf above the TV, another bookshelf, and anywhere else she could find them. Once the living room was fairly lit-up, and each of us with a flashlight in hand, we began exploring the possabilities. Erin pointed out that we didn't have an unusual amount of power. I remarked that she had just changed the light bulbs in her room to a higher wattage bulb, though I couldn't imagine it made that much difference, especially considering that she had left one socket empty so as not to make it overly bright in her room.

So off to the fuse box we went, stopping at the kitchen window on the way to see that our neighbor also had no power. We could usually see his Christmas lights lit up (white icicle lights that he leaves up year-round) and his porch light was almost always on at night. Neither were visible. Erin, being much more of a genius than I could ever pretend to be, turned off her flashlight for a moment to see that Jeff's windows had candle-light glow showing through, so that we knew for sure he was home and was also experiencing the power outage. The fuse-box looked fine, which was what we expected after seeing that the outage extended past our house. The people that live behind our property also had no lights coming from their houses -- much more visible now without leaves on the trees -- and a trip out the front revealed to us that the people living on the other side of Jeff also had no lights on. It was then that we noticed the street-lights being out as well.

"Must have been a transformer," Erin pointed out as she picked up the phone (fortunately, we have one that's not a portable plugged in) to call the power company.

We were, apparently, the first call about this outage. "So you're the third brick house on the right?" the woman asked after taking down our address.

"Yes," replied Erin, a touch confused and frightened. "They must have a REALLY good map of the city, or some extra special notes on their route plans," she told me when she got off the phone.

Erin grew up in central NC, which she called Thunderstorm Land while explaining why she knew so well what to do and not to do when your power's out. Getting the flashlights and candles out I can handle, along with turning off everything that had been on so they don't blow a fuse when power's restored. Not opening the freezer or fridge more than absolutely necessary was obvious enough. But not flushing the commode or running water -- I had never thought of that before in my life! To me, water is water and electricity is electricity. I had never known how dependant our running water is on electricity 'till Erin explained all of this to me.

I grew up in Hurricane Land, sure .. Hurricane Andrew passed right near my Floridian hometown on its path of major destruction. But I don't remember ever having a power outage for more than maybe an hour or two during my childhood, and I don't think I'd ever been told about the water problem.

At any rate.. the power was restored around 4am, Erin tells me -- which she knew because she'd forgotten to turn her room light off before going to bed. And we got along just fine reading by candlelight before drifting off to sleep. (We each read for something like an hour or two before bed. She, not being a student, gets to read fun books. I read some of my school textbooks as well as the book I'll be doing a review on for my English class.)

Before bedtime, though, Erin went outside to get something from her car. When she came in, she told me I had to go outside and look at the moon, which I did gladly. I love the moon, in any stage, color, or position in the sky. This night, it was beautiful, clear, very white. Only the slightest hint of the characteristic yellow we usually see in the moon. In a large, wide circle around the moon was a hazy ring. In certain parts of the ring, I could see what appeared to be a rainbow. After telling Erin that it wasn't a regular power outage, but rather a UFO attack that was causing our troubles, I put on a sweater to go lay down on our front walk and stare at the moon at its ring for something like half an hour or so.

We would not have been able to see the ring so clearly had the power stayed on that night. Indeed, we probably wouldn't even have noticed it.

Ah, the Lord does work all things for His glory.