30 Hours of Isolation – May 11, 2011

So I have been putting off this one project for Mikinduri since we came back in March. Last year, I worked on the patient records database immediately as I was in Phoenix and 'homesick' for the Mikinduri crew. This year, I was on the road for 3 weeks and try as I might, cannot find the motivation to focus long enough to work on this. With the next three weeks quite full with other Mikinduri tasks (and family fun), I neeeed to focus and get this done! So I'm going out to the family cottage.

We have this great asset in the family that my grandpa built, slowly expanding it from a one room summer dwelling to a four bedroom cottage complete with an outhouse. My uncles did a lot of work to keep up the cottage, but despite their efforts, it was turning into a rustic fishing cottage with great character, but not a lot of cleanliness. My immediate family helped maintain the cottage one day every year when we came to visit PEI in the summer, and learned great skills like shingling, tarring a roof, and leveling. We also had a lot of fun at the cottage as the whole Grant clan would join together with cousins all over the place, swimming in the river, climbing trees, and the adults gathered with drinks in hand. (At some point before my time the outhouse had been renamed the pump house, there was indoor plumbing, and one of the bedrooms was converted to a bathroom complete with shower). When my uncles' grandkids popped on the scene, they simultaneously came to the realization that we should fix up the cottage to be safe, clean, and especially rodent free so the next generation could come and have fun and their mothers wouldn't be scared to bring them. Two of my uncles then devoted nearly every weekend for months to bring the cottage up to grandkid code, and boy did they! You would never know this quaint, clean, finished, beautiful cottage was ever home to bats, mice, or a swarm of mosquitoes. (One year the mosquitoes were so bad, I slept in a pup tent in the living room to avoid the blood-suckers!) All of the work they put in is so appreciated as this building is now a treasure that we as a family of 16 cousins and 5 parents maintain through our board with rules, dues, and calendars for timesharing.

I went off the grid to try to accomplish my goal. It's not really off the grid, as there is electricity, but there's no internet, phones, cell service, and since the pump isn't hooked up there's no running water. The only heat is from a stove in the center of the room. I love how quaint that is, and it really does a great job of heating up the place using the wood I cut as a lumberman last fall. It turns out though, that if you break that little glass window on the front, it doesn't work nearly as well, and goes through wood very very quickly! It was a bit chilly when I got out here yesterday, and while I'm not scared to be out in the middle of nowhere alone with no cell reception, I did want to take precautions. After driving my car through the entrance, I put the chain back up to make it look like the house wasn't being used, and I parked around back. I realize that having the lights on and smoke coming from the chimney might have indicated someone was present, but hey, it was a first glance kind of precaution.

My first task was to start the fire, and I did so after only 2 attempts! I then added logs throughout the day to keep the fire going. This plan was going great until about 10pm at night when I realized I needed to put a nice big log on to keep me warm all night. I opened the heavy cast iron door and tossed the log in. It looked like everything was staying in place, so I shut the door. At that moment the giant log rolled off the top of the wood that was already on fire and tried to escape through the glass. It was nearly successful as though it had no pointy parts, it broke the glass. I then spent the next 10 minutes looking for something to cover the front of the stove to keep the glass as in place as possible to keep the heat in and limit the amount of air getting in. There was the perfect lasagna sized aluminum foil pan that I put up to the shattered glass and thanks to it being so cold outside, this was sucked in and sealed onto the broken glass. Success! The next morning the fire was still on, but I had to open the doors to throw a few more logs in as it was getting cold in the room. At this point all the glass fell out and for the rest of the day I stayed in my sleeping bag while working on my projects. It's a good thing my dog is a Pomeranian; if he was any other breed he would have frozen his tail off. (Note: while crossing the bridge to get replacement for the glass, a rock flew up and cracked my windshield. What is that – 14 years of bad luck??)

Having noise in the background was still a necessity, so I was able to get caught up on the last 2 months of podcasts. I then walked down memory lane with Evita, recalling an awesome trip to Cyprus where my sister bought this on cassette and we listened to it for hours. (CD's were quite popular at the time so the fact that we bought it on cassette shows it was both on sale and probably a bootleg copy). After I had enough of Madonna trying really hard to hit the high notes, I stumbed on an old lp recording of Jesus Christ Superstar my dad converted to mp3. We listened to this lp around Easter when I was younger (when cassettes were around but not overly present in my house). I had no idea Jesus was such a fan of hair bands. I mean I know He loves us all equally and especially likes music praising Him, but I wonder if He has a musical preference. If so, I'll bet it's polka. You can find that familiar Oom-pa-pa tune in just about every culture, right now it's heavy in Mexican music.

I got a bunch of work done and the solitude was the perfect place to focus. I didn't finish my task entirely, but another day or two at the cottage should accomplish that. It was kind of fun trying to eat with no water running water. To make my highly nutritious Mac and Cheese (aka KD in Canada) I had to get water from the deep freeze behind the pump house. Luckily, the entire lobster I enjoyed for lunch didn't require any water, as it was mere leftovers from Mothers Day. (Yup I did just say that in between my can of peas and mac and cheese I enjoyed a fresh lobster!) Dishes were a bit harder task to accomplish and I was beginning to have to use the bathroom really bad. We'll not go into that.

Overall I had a great time off the grid and discovered text messages could still go through if I had the cell in just the right spot. I need to pack up my laptop now so I can go back to being on the grid…as if I was ever really off it.