Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Post-Ike Update #2:
We are still at my parents (their power outage, as I texted some of you, was blessedly short). I love my mom and dad dearly, and sincerely appreciate their letting us crash here, but OH MY GOD. Sooooooo ready to be back in my own home. We're still without power and water at home, and it does not look promising - I am hoping and praying we have electricity restored by this weekend. Friday night will be one full week without power.

Thank the Lord above, it has been cool and dry here the past few days - highs around 80, lows in the 60's. The morning after this cool front came through, I walked outside and smelled the air, clean and fresh, and thought, "Okay, I can handle today." And so I try not to think too much past the day at hand.

The past 6 days have felt like a month. This whole experience has been surreal. I went into town to go the grocery store, in search of cheese (how sad is that! I miss my dairy - it has been incredbly hard to come by. I went to three different stores before I hit the "jackpot: generic shredded chedder, and I cradled that white, non-descript plastic pouch like it was a newborn baby. The things you take for granted...) Driving around our small town, and seeing traffic, and businesses open, and people going about their daily routine - it was comforting, and I felt a little better. And then I pass by a washateria - its parking lot is overflowing. People have no power to wash their clothes (no clean panties!). I walked into the grocery store, and all the fridge and freezer cases are bare. People wander around with empty carts, dazed. It's like an alternate universe. And it made me really sad - got a little ferklempt for the first time in this whole ordeal. It was the sad, empty Sonic, with its roof half torn off, that did it. And I don't even like the Sonic! And I don't even really like this TOWN! But it still makes me sad.

I am really looking forward to going back to work (on Monday!). This long of a period of unstructured time does weird things to my head.

Okay, here's something moderately amusing:
J worked at the house today while I went running around town. Since the weather has been so nice, he left the doors and windows open, and the cats were running in and out.
I went into our bedroom late this afternoon, and noticed some black spots on the carpet - upon closer inspection, I discovered a suspicious and alarming amount of bitty bird feathers. Hmmm... None of the cats confessed to anything, and we could not find any other remnants of an aviary homicide under the beds or in the usual hiding spots, but if I find (or smell!) a bird carcass in my house after all of this other bullshit, I will be kicking some major cat ass.

1 comment:

Electric Monk said...

I'm finding that things are slowly and surely getting back to normal (although far more quickly than I originally feared). The first couple of days I waited for power, then I waited for the grocery store to open, now I'm waiting for it to have something besides egg, milk, and bread. And I'm with you, I'm SO looking forward to going back to work, although I suspect the first few days will be filled with, "So, what did you do during Ike?"