My friend and fellow dog mommy SY sent me an e-mail about participating in National Turn Your Lights Off day which was yesterday. Basically, you were supposed to turn off your lights and not use any electricity from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm. She sent a link to a youtube video which was cool and showed how an area pretty much went into total darkness when the citizens participated in an earlier year. It brought to mind that blackout last year when we looked out the windows at home and saw the lights of the Waikiki hotels and McCully/Moiliili condos turn off. It was fascinating yet kind of scary.
So we decided we would participate since we are trying to be somewhat more green this year. I can't say that the kids were overwhelmingly thrilled about the prospect of having no electricity for an hour. Even SY commented in her e-mail that she was concerned about her husband adjusting to life without television. At my house, the concern was more about not going primal and killing each other out of boredom while sitting in the dark.
We decided we would prepare ourselves for the coming blackout like we were members of David Kuresh's Branch Davidians. Initially, we had planned to stay at my parents' house but my Mom said there was no way she would turn off the tv at 8:30 since there was a good Korean soap opera then and there was no way she was going to miss it (not only no tv but no VCR either). Therefore, the Professor and the Diva headed home so we could be good green citizens. The Mad Cow slept over at my folks' house last night since he is attending a banquet honoring my late Uncle LK's bowling skills. Hmm, I wonder how THAT is going since the Mad Cow froths at the mouth like a crazed Pavlovian dog whenever he hears the B-word.
Our first task was to buy candles since we only had trick birthday candles around the house. Boy, candles are really expensive! We were at Ala Moana yesterday afternoon since the twins had to buy swimwear for school (which they return to on Monday - hooray) and thought we could pick up some inexpensive candles. All we found were those New Age-y smell good kine' - the cheapest were $10 at Old Navy. Needless to say, we ended up buying a box of five emergency candles at Longs for $1.75 on the way home from my parents' to our house along with a $7 box of hanafuda cards.
By the time we got home, it was already 8:15 pm. Nobody had eaten or bathed. The Professor decided he would take a "quick" shower. Now, for most people, that means 5 minutes but for him, that meant 20 minutes - putting him into lights out time. At 8:30, Oscar the Grouch knocked on the door and told him that it was time and the lights were going out. This was greeted with "I'm not done yet" and "I don't have a towel". This is an ongoing issue at our house - why the kids have to use a new towel every day and why they do not check before they go into the shower if there are towels - so it wasn't a surprise. I guess you could say that the Professor did not truly participate in the hour lights off since he was still in the lighted bathroom for 10 minutes.
The Diva and I looked out the window at 8:30 and nobody's light shut off. We seemed to be the only people sitting in the dark with our cup of candles. The Diva, the Professor and I decided we would play hanafuda for money - person with the most points at the end of the hour would be paid a penny a point by the two losers. Oscar decided he would try to read since he knew the kids would inevitably get into an argument at the end of the card game if they did not tie for first place. Smart move.
We did play hanafuda and the Diva won. She was so happy that we could turn the lights and mostly the television back on that she forgot about badgering us to pay her. At least that argument was avoided.
The dogs did not take too well to the blackout though. It was no big deal for Chaos since he is really cataract-impaired and it probably looked the same for him with the lights on. He did kind of wander around and do a pinball bing-bang-bong richochet thing between the dog food and dog water borls. Rayni was invisible in the darkness like a fat stealth dog - so black that she couldn't be seen anywhere. Tiger kind of freaked out and tried to eat the candles. Eventually, after being yelled at to stop for 30 minutes and trying to climb into everyone's laps, she sacked out on the couch.
At exactly 9:30, we turned the lights on and everyone went into the kitchen to microwave their dinners. Of course, the television was blaring as soon as we could reach the remote.
As the kids said, it sucked that we were the only ones who seemed to have participated. Oh well, at least nobody killed each other and there was only a minimal amount of hanafuda-cheating accusatory hostility thrown around.
Five things I learned about playing hanafuda with my kids:
1) The Professor should not play poker as he will annouce to you that he has 3 25 point cards and will ask you if you have any of the cards in that suit that you can throw down so he can win
2) The Diva will show her cards to everyone even if you tell her, "Hey, I can see your cards"
3) Tiger will try to eat anything you put on the living room table including hanafuda cards, candles, pencils, scissors, socks, food, silverware.....
4) If you have the umbrella guy in your hand, he's worth 25. If you don't, he's worth only 5.
5) Even if you send your kids to private school, they will still come up with the wrong total for their hanafuda points (always higher)
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