Darkness...

So, Julie M and I are in Gray Court doing Montessori training again, and Monday night we were motivated and excited and goal-orientated to get some work/homework done. So, we're working along and I noticed a storm approaching (since I had the curtains open.) I continued working on my laptop, completely forgetting that A)I am here with my karma partner, Julie and B)her apartment was just hit by lighting. About the same moment that I decided I should for safety reasons unplug my laptop, the power in our hotel goes out. 1 1/2 seconds later Julie has flown down the hall and is knocking on my door. The monsoon has arrived and we could barely even make out the next hotel through my window. We did notice the rain flooding in my room, so a little break to take care of that. The trees were bending to touch the parking lot. The stop lights were out. Emergency vehicles were going down Fairview Rd. No business (except Pizza Hut-what kind of reprieve did they get??) had lights or power.
We really tried to pass the time. We looked at every file on my laptop, including every picture with Julie viewed with utmost patience. Then we started to drink. That wasn't on the agenda, but what else can you do in a power outage! After raspberry drinkies were consumed, we made our way down 4 floors to the lobby. There congregated every smoker in the building. Actually it was soooo hot on the 4th floor that anything was better than our room. As the night progressed, we drank more, we tried (honestly!) to share our stash, and we talked to random strangers. It is always interesting to talk to people that you ordinarily would not have the opportunity to talk to. That night Julie and I were sitting on the luggage carts right inside the doors. Most of the evening I talked to Randy from Delaware. We talked about superficial things, as new conversations go-they were there because his and his mom's car broke, the mechanics screwed up, mom was ticked off that they couldn't check in, he was on an 8 week leave from Chrysler because no one is buying the Durango. Later, as we drank more and more and more, Randy talks more (and his mother finally loosens up some). He has a 13 year old son that he hasn't seen in a year. His ex-wife probably has borderline personality disorder, and has forever. He asked me, el drunko on the suitcase mover, if that was bad. I gave him the most of my ability, that borderline was the worse of the mental illnesses because they are so resistant to treatment. He said that finally, I, drunkard on the furniture mover, finally explained things in a common sense language. Who KNOWS what I said! I hope I don't wind up on Jerry. We were talking about his son, and I urged him to get his son from his crazy mother, because time was a'wasting. He said, almost an admission of defeat, that he felt it was too late and he could do nothing. I tried to convince him that he could make lots of changes if he would get his son, but he didn't want to hear what I had to say. Interestingly, there are over 150 kittens at his work site and he risks being fired to save them. Interesting. Can't/won't save his son but won't let a cat die. Interesting.