As commented, electricity and running water are 'givens' in this civilized world of ours. I remember coming back from living in Palau (as well as another overseas place) and facing the loss of electricity after a snowstorm or a hurricane or whatevaaa. My neighbor who lived in a lovely LARGE colonial house on the hill behind us would call within minutes of finding herself without one of the 'givens.'
"Do you have electricity?"
"How long have you been without electricity?"
"Did you call the utility company?"
"When do you think we will get it back?"
I can remember thinking that there are people who live without electricity for much longer than 30 minutes or three days or whatever crisis hits the U.S. I remember thinking what spoiled brats Americans are...what failures at coping. What a little princess I have living next door. She really needed to be in a condo in the city, but she and her children wanted to go to a certain school and she had to live in a large house surrounded by acres filled with such scary things as deer, fox, ground hogs, etc.
Since my hubby and I loved camping it took us no time to get the fireplace going for warmth or cooking and a lantern or candles for light or brushing our teeth on the back deck since our septic pump didn't work and then we went back to what we were doing.
I will admit that now that I have lived with the 'givens' for a couple of decades, the hurricane two years ago that left us without power for 5 days, WAS a challenge. But it was mostly the challenge of having to wait to get stuff. Long lines and traffic problems without lights.
For my owl friend I will blog next about megapode...not a a parrot but cool none-the-less.
Hehe, this gave me a giggle. Especially I think in this country we forget that things like running water and electricity are luxuries to people in other countries. We definitely ARE lucky to have things beyond that, like central AC and heat. A stove to cook on. Microwave ovens. Computers with broadband Internet access....
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