Hurricane Ike's "Perks"?

I got my electric bill yesterday. I had heard news stories about customers getting larger than expected bills even though many of us had no power for days or weeks. I was a little surprised to see my bill a lot smaller than usual. Last month my bill was $233. The bill I got yesterday was for $106. There was a note on the bill saying that it was "estimated". Since the electric company was using all it's resources to repair, they were not reading meters. Hum. I am actually happy to have my bill lower. Of course I was without power for nine days. I won't complain since others were getting higher than expected bills. Now Reliant Energy is setting up a number for customers to call and 1. learn how to read their meter, and 2. get and adjustment on their bill. Me, I'll take the $106. Then again, will they raise the bill later to make up the difference? Maybe I should not give them any ideas. Ha!

I finally got through to Comcast cable. They had announced a plan to adjust next month's bills for those who lost cable due to Ike. I am not really expecting a big difference. But we shall see. Every little bit helps.

I finally plugged the freezer back in. One thing about having no power, there is a lot of time to clean out the refrigerator and freezer. My fridge is cleaner than it has been in a while. My poor freezer looks lonely with nothing in it now. But we are going to replace some of the stuff we could not save, mostly veggies and important things like ice cream. We are still debating about filling it with a lot of stuff. I know freezers work better when they are full, but we may not keep a lot in it until hurricane season is over. After losing a whole bag of french fries and some expensive fish and some home made chicken enchilada pie, we are going to take it easy on putting a lot in the freezer.

It could have been worse.