Yes ladies and gentlemen, my first black out. For those of you who aren't aware, I live in Brooklyn, NY about 10 minutes from the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, depending on your mode of transportation. Let me tell you how the story unfolds.

Our tale begins on Thursday afternoon, at about 410pm. I'm standing in my classroom, cleaning up after a party, and all of the sudden, the lights go out. But not just the lights, it's abnormally quiet in the building. The children, who are usually quite rambunctious, are as still as mice. The teachers walk from their various rooms out into the hall, look at each other, shake their heads, and return to their classes to gather the children and bring them outside. Seems like a simple task, right? Ever try to walk 20 four-year-olds down a pitch black hallway, and then down the stairwell with no lights? Fun. Everyone reached the sunlight safe and sound, after several panicked cries of "I'm scaaaaaaared!" nonetheless.

At any rate, soon the rumors start pouring in, and no one is quite sure exactly what is going on in our neighborhood, or city for that matter. Stories included: the Con Edison building on 14th street is on fire; Lightning strikes in Niagara Falls caused the power in NYC to go out. What?? Nothing made sense.

We set up tea lights on the stoop, running them down the stairs out front. Everyone in the neighborhood stopped by at least twice to get the latest news. Best of all, when you looked up into the night sky, you could see stars! As many stars as anyone has seen in the New York skyline since, well, the last blackout twenty or so years ago. It was great. Did I mention that I only nearly fell down the stairs of my apartment one time. I felt like I was climbing up and down the stairs of a dungeon.

Everyone went to bed wanting the power to be restored, but at the same time hoping that it would hold off just long enough to cancel work on Friday. Thank goodness that occurred. When I walked to the center Friday morning, there was a nice note posted that said "Center closed due to power outage: Enjoy your weekend." Yay!

But there was a problem. What were we to eat for breakfast? Can't buy anything that was meant to be refrigerated. Can't eat anything from our own fridge, heaven forbid. No dairy that's for sure. Let’s look and see what Grace has in storage. Ah! A box of mac & cheese. For breakfast. At 10am. Hey you gotta do what you gotta do in emergency situations. Let’s just say that it wasn't a day full of health food that's for sure. The menu for the day consisted of cookies, mac & cheese, pizza, nachos, starbucks coffee, Lard bread (it's not as nasty as it sounds), and a cherry blow pop.

We finally got power restored to our neighborhood around 3pm Friday afternoon. I guess to fully understand the festivities that took place you had to be here, but all in all it wasn't so bad a time. It's nice to hear the city in silence once in a while... eerie for those who have lived here all their lives, but for those of us non-natives who moved here from the sticks, it was definitely a night to remember.