A Funny Phone Call

This evening, about 7pm, I got a 1-800-phone call. I don't normally answer those calls, and when the answering machine picked up, it was a recorded call from the Dan Drew campaign.

The subject of the call was to accuse Mayor Giuliano of not "standing up to the electric company" like other mayors have done.

Really? There are only so many crews, so much time, and SO many trees and damaged lines to fix. What "standing up" by any mayor is going to change the amount of time it's going to take to put our electric grid back together? Just what can anyone say or do to make it go faster?

I know it has been a frustrating week, but I am so thankful for the men and women that have worked their tails off this week to get things working again. I'm sure it wasn't perfect, and perhaps CL&P might have done something differently to be better prepared. But, I overheard a conversation the other day about a crew that came from Canada and worked in Maine, then New Hampshire, then Massachusetts and then here in Connecticut. They're a long way from home and I have no doubt they've been working as hard as possible over the last week.

Just for comparison's sake, the International Energy Agency estimated in 2009 that 1,441 million people in the world didn't have access to electricity. That's 1.4 billion people, or 20% of the world's population. Even with my generator, which powered my heat, well, fridge, and microwave, and about 1/2 the lights in my house, I did find myself feeling annoyed because I couldn't do laundry. I'm sorry for that, because I know I have far more than the majority of the world has...I wasn't hungry or cold or out in the elements. Even if I had been, I have the resources to just go someplace else that has whatever I was lacking.

Thanksgiving is coming, and it's never too early to be thankful for anything and everything. It's also my daughter's 8th birthday, and when I consider how hard it was to even have her, everything else just fades away.

Here's what I'm thankful for: my family, my home, my friends, and my town. I'm thankful for the way the crazy weather over the last 3 months has allowed me to get to know my neighbors better. I'm also glad for the opportunity to teach my children what hospitality and caring for your neighbors really looks like.

I'm not saying I did it perfectly this week. There were MANY moments I cursed the blasted storm and wished the kids were in school. OK, it was most of the time. I was REALLY annoyed that Halloween was canceled (our neighborhood has underground utilities and young trees, so we didn't have the dangers I know were present elsewhere), but then I got to hear my daughter say that this would be the "healthiest Halloween ever" because only 7 houses on my street were home to give out candy.

I've volunteered with Feed My Starving Children, an organization that packs meals for other organizations to distribute to malnourished children in nearly 70 countries worldwide. Their meal package costs $1.44 cents for 6 children, and for most of these kids, it's their only meal of the day. The 2005 World Bank estimate has 1,345 million people living on less than $1.25 per day. When I look at those numbers, even a few days without power seems a whole lot better than a lifetime of poverty and malnutrition.

So, in the end, I didn't appreciate that phone call at all. I get that campaigns are down to the last minute, but let's focus on what candidates actually have control over, and CL&P's performance isn't one of those things. Let's talk about education in our town, or how the Council, the Mayor, and the BOE don't get along AND spend our tax dollars to do it. Let's talk about accountability and transparency and politics as public service, not as political power-mongering.

See you at the polls on Tuesday morning...