So, I am sitting at my desk here so tired I have no ability to really concentrate on my work. I think I am in stage two of a bad hangover. I can barely keep my eyes open and I have no ability to apply my brain to anything I am actually being paid to do. As a result, I can only blog my progressive hangover away. Really, I don’t know if you can call it a hangover. It is more like the culmination of a ridiculous weekend that involved booze, the Montreal fire department, a winter storm and power outages.

On Friday, I left the office early because the city had been gripped by a huge storm and giant clumps of ice came falling from the sky, bouncing off the windows of our office building. Much of the city lost power. Here in Montreal power outages are common. I like to think of it as our homage to developing nations. I’ve heard there are two reasons that when combined cause the frequent outages. The amount of ice here is surprising, and the power lines are old and the cost to replace that infrastructure is prohibitive. At least this is the layman’s reasoning for the outages, but it doesn’t explain why the power was also going out in the summer. I called Hydro Quebec to get an estimated time for the power to come back (Hydro Quebec encourages consumers to call for this kind of information). The agent curtly informed me that there were over 270,000 people without power and every five minutes another block goes down so I cannot expect her to tell me when my power is coming back. We pay for this service.

Totally dependant on my laptop screen and cell phone for light, the temperature in my apartment quickly fell, and there was no way I could just stay there. Luckily the hosts of the party I was going to attend got a generator and it was time to dance. Body heat replaced Hydro Quebec. I have learned that a blackout + lots of booze + generator powered music + full moon = a house full of scandalously drunken adults. I got home at 4:30am, or so I have been told. I can’t believe I got my key in the door. I think my power was on when I got in because there was enough light for me to wash my face in my drunken state and not fall over.

A couple hours later, loud crashing noises and some yelling got me out of bed. Not sure if it was a dream and still intoxicated I started wandering around my apartment naked as the day I was born looking for the cause of the commotion. It wasn’t until I stood in my kitchen did I see that the building behind mine was, well, burning down. Drunk as I was, I immediately became concerned for the people living in the building and started to cry a little. I stopped when I noticed that the firemen were pointing in the direction of my apartment and I remembered that since there are huge windows in my kitchen the inside of my apartment is plainly visible from the backyard – where the firemen looked to be heading – I decided that I had better get some clothes on which would prove difficult as the power had gone out again making it almost impossible to sift through the tangled mountain of clothes on my bedroom floor. And, oh yeah, I was still pretty drunk. Luckily they did not evacuate my building, and I could sleep the booze off – sort of.

For some reason I decided to get out of bed at noon and attend a capoeira thing that afternoon with a friend of mine. Oh, I remember what the reason was, my power had not come back and my apartment was about 1 degree warmer than outside. I am a trooper, I tell you because I sat through that whole thing. After ward I went home and took a bit of a nap. Thankfully the power was back on.

After my nap, I attended two parties with the intention of staying mostly sober for the whole night. My plan failed and two red wines, a beer, three gin and tonics and a caprinha later I found myself dancing to the Thriller album in my coworkers kitchen. You know, the thriller album really is timeless.

I arrived home at 4:00am. Sunday morning I got out of bed at 2:00pm, making it Sunday afternoon and spent the whole day – well, what was left of it, on the couch. I went back to bed nine hours later and shockingly I couldn’t sleep. So, now I feel terrible. I did it to myself.
- posted by Debbie @ 1:21 PM