Yeah, that was fun

Yesterday, a guy came to our front door saying that he'd been in the neighborhood trimming trees, and wanted to know if we wanted the dead one in the back taken down. "Sure, come give us an estimate." He suggested $400, which was about what I'd heard before. If not for the brakes on the car a while back, it would have been a done deal. He offered $200 to take off the big branches, leaving just the trunk. OK, that's not too bad, and then the major hazard will be gone, and we can get rid of the trunk next year.

So he's up in the tree like a squirrel, lopping off branches. Sure enough, one fell on the power lines, and ZAP! ripped it right out of the power pole behind the house. Jeff had asked him if was insured, and he said he was, but! - he didn't have his card with him. As we were getting information, it turns out he didn't have a driver's license, either. As I'm fuming that I don't want to give him a thin dime, Jeff wrote him a $75 check and said good bye. I couldn't even talk to him - I was afraid of what I might say.

I called Edison, and they said someone would be out "between now and 2." Alrighty! We borrowed our neighbor's generator, Jeff stayed home from his Bible study, and we kind of winged it for the rest of the night. Sarah got to break in her Incredibles flashlight a little earlier than planned, though. After the girls were in bed, Jeff & I watched Suspect Zero on his laptop, plugged in to the extension cord. He went to bed, but I stayed up reading/dozing on the couch to see when the guys got here.

They didn't come. I called Edison at 8, and they had no ETA for the repairmen, but "a crew has been assigned, so they should be on their way, if they're not there now."

At noon, I called Edison back. "Did they get lost?" The lady I talked to was very nice, and I realized that they thought we needed tree trimming first. Nooooo, that's what got us into this problem in the first place! The tree is absolutely not the issue! About 20 minutes after that, the tree trimmer guy showed up. Too bad they can't contact these guys, huh? He ripped some vines off the power pole, then left.

FINALLY, at about quarter after four, the Edison truck showed up. We have power again, and I can get my computer fix.

On the bright side, the guy didn't fall out of the tree and break his neck. He didn't drop a log through the roof of the garage. The wire came out of the pole, not the house, so it wasn't hot. We didn't get charged for the Edison call. (I still have to call the phone company, because that wire is sagging in a big way.)

We have an agreement to find (or make!) a No Soliciting Sign ASAP.