Local folklore (often of the Gringo variety) says that the summer rains will not start before 15 June.
And folklore is often just plain wrong. As this morning has proved.
Let's skip over the fact that summer rains cannot start until after 21 June, because it will not be summer until then. But that type of persnickety trivia-infatuation is for people who, as children, had imaginary friends who lived in their dirty clothes hamper.
Just after 6 this morning, I could hear a familiar tapping on the plastic covering of my shower chimney. The cover provides a multi-use recreational area for the local grackles. They eat and dance and mate up there. It is the avian version of Studio 54.
But this was not the talon-topped feet of dancing grackles. It was rain. Early rain if you are to believe the fabulists.
There is something comforting about the light patter of rain in the dark while you are lying in bed. It is almost womb-like.
My prenatal reverie was broken by the thought of distant thunder. Thunder usually means lightning. Lightning means electronic death to my stable of digital gadgets.
I was just getting out of bed when the power failed. That happens regularly here with the first rain. And lightning is not required as an ally.
Before I took a step, the power returned. I started back to bed. The power went off -- and almost immediately came back on, but at a markedly reduced rate. My ceiling fan was barely turning. And then everything went dead. Again. And stayed that way.
I got dressed and walked around the block. No one was yet on our street, but most of the houses had external lights ablaze.
If I was the only house in my neighborhood without power, I thought my new solar system might be a problem. Messaging my pal Rick Noble put paid to that notion. He told me to check my meters, if the red lights were on, it meant CFE (our local power company) did not have power running to my house.
The lights were red. I thanked him for my continuing education in being a house manager.
I saw a neighbor woman while I was looking at my meters, and asked her if she was without power. She said she had no power in the house. But her external light was on.
That is one of the things that confuses me about our electrical supply system here. When I lived up north, whenever our neighborhood had a power outage, all of the lights went out.
Not here. Some of the street lights were on this morning. Some were out. Some porch lights were on. Others weren't. But it appears the power in all of our houses in this part of town was out.
I first experienced the some on-some off phenomenon in my last rental in Villa Obregon. Often when the power would trip off, almost all of my outlets went dead -- except along one wall. My table lamp, portable telephone, and modem would stay lit. The rest of the house could have been the Carlsbad Cavern.
Apparently, that was the way the house had been wired. And when I looked outside, there was no pattern as to which house had power and which did not.
So, I stored today's lesson away for future reference.
I had intended to report the outage to CFE, but I started drafting this note to you, instead. By 9:30, when I was writing the twelfth paragraph, I could hear the fan powering up in my bedroom.
And to that I had a mixed response. I am pleased how quickly CFE reacts to these outages. But I am always a bit disappointed that an anticipated event (like rain) can pull down a portion of the power grid.
Even with that, I am thankful -- that this event was not a problem with my new solar array, that Rick was immediately at hand to assuage my concerns, and that I can now sit on a refreshingly-cooled patio and tell you a tale of power withheld.
That is a pretty good way to start a day.
Note -- If you are perplexed at the screen shot at the top of this essay, so am I. How can the current condition show rain and the chance of precipitation be 10%. If it is raining, I think the chance of rain needs another 0. But what do I know? Mathematics may have joined the disciplines where normative rules do not exist any more.
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