Hurricane Run-Down

We spent Saturday morning watching the Weather Channel, distracting Dexter by letting him watch "vi-vee-ooos on the com-pooot-er" so we could see the hurricane's progress. Eventually we peeled ourselves away and Dex and I took Buddy for a walk while we still could, while John finished up a few more things outside. Perhaps we'd better bungee the awning. Perhaps we should remove the tarp and the swings from the swing set. Perhaps we should drain some water from the already overflowing pool. Perhaps the pool needs some chlorine. Perhaps Dexter needs to spend an hour pretending to screw things with Daddy's screwdriver, and Mama needs to giggle every time he says earnestly "YOU can screw that hole WAY UP THERE!" Because my mind is a sick, sick thing.

Nap time was spent bringing in the last few things from the sun porch. We celebrated "hooray we have power for one more night" dinner on Saturday with chicken nuggets (home made and awesome) and some rosemary potatoes (again, home made. Again, awesome. It's like I know how to cook, or something...)

Here's how outside looked on Saturday evening:

Nothing terribly exciting.

Having nothing left to do Saturday night but wait for the power to go out, we sat around watching bad TV. Ever watched "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding?" It's actually kind of intriguing. I didn't know the Gypsy culture still existed in England. The power went out at 8:30 PM and we thought "OK, here we go. We're powerless for a while." John had no sooner gone up to Dexter's room to switch his ocean to battery power (annoying it doesn't do it by itself) than the power came back on. Hooray for small miracles! We could watch more bad TV before going to bed at a ridiculously early hour.

3:30 Sunday AM brought another power outage for 30 seconds or so. Dexter woke up but was quiet. I woke up and worried a little while. John slept right through.

Sunday morning at 6:30 we woke up to the alarm - miracle of all miracles, we still had power! Dex and I were just getting ready to mix up some celebratory "Yay, we have power!" waffles when POOF! Power went out. Damn. On to Plan B - egg salad, cereal, grapes, quick open and close that fridge and don't let all the cold air out.

Here's some video from Sunday morning:

Not a whole lot of rain in the morning. The heavy stuff came through over night. So we just got to watch the wind whipping through the trees, and the mist in the air. We did a whole lot of this:

Yanked out some new books from the closet and enjoyed reading "Green Eggs and Ham" about 27 billion times.

Just as we were getting used to no power POOF, on it came again at 9:30. Cool! That wasn't so bad. Not bad at all. An hour and a half with no power. We turned on the Weather Channel again and watched Jim Cantore standing around in Manhattan saying the same thing over and over.

And just when we thought we were safe and all our preparation was for naught, POOF! Power went out again at 10:30. This time we figured we were in for the long haul. Neighbor's generators started running. We did some of this, as seen in yesterday's post:

Caught by Daddy in an epic game of "GO GO GO"

And some more of this, with different readers:

I do so like green eggs and ham. Thank you, thank you, Sam-I-Am.

Before lunch the rain stopped and we decided to go outside to play in the wind for a while. Dexter was none too pleased at first:

Ummmmm. Who turned on the damn wind machine?

He looks totally thrilled in this video, right?

But eventually he got used to the wind and played and swung and sat next to Daddy and was generally cute, if not ridiculously grumpy and in need of some damn sleep:

I NEVER can get these two looking at the same time

Oooh! Almost! Except somehow the camera angle did weird things to John's head...

There was nothing to do during nap time. No bad TV. No internets. No desire to turn on the computer. Nothing to do but read a book (!!!!) and fall asleep. We should try this no power thing more often. It has its definite benefits.

During nap time the clouds cleared away and our hurricane turned in to a beautiful day, albeit without power:

We galloped off for a walk to see if there was any damage in the neighborhood, and in our yard. Nothing significant in our yard. A few trees down in the neighborhood, mostly some Bradford Pear trees. Thusly:

Holy blue sky. Did a hurricane really just go through here?

I had just turned on the grill and gotten some hot dogs out to cook, and some leftover potatoes to heat up on the grill, and some sliced tomatoes, and John was talking to his parents telling them all was well, save our lack of power, when POOF! On came the power. Fabulous!

And life carried on as normal. Actual lights turned on. Stuff got carried back outside. Jungle of a lawn got mowed. Beer got consumed. That wasn't so bad, after all.

Maybe we should lose power more often...

Really, it was quite pleasant today. If we could figure out a way to lose power but NOT worry about losing all the food in our fridge, I might sign up to do it every Sunday.

Here's a quick clip of what we did for about 15 minutes. I'll post more about what we did the rest of the day. Maybe tomorrow.

The calm before the storm

We're just hanging out here, waiting for a hurricane to come. We think we're ready.

The deck is cleared off and pretty much everything outside has been brought in:

The swings and the tarp have been removed from the swing set. Note the ridiculously green and very very long grass in our back yard. Never in my life have I seen grass so green at the end of August:

This stuff is drying off in the sun room and will be moved inside before the wind hits. Don't quite trust the sun room for wind or rain protection...

The garage is filled with stuff that usually isn't in there. We expect the grill to be our life-line for the next few days for cooking things. We always lose power here:

Buddy is chillin outside while he still can. I'm not sure how Short Legs is going to pee in 50 MPH winds. He might blow away.

And the boys are doing this. Hopefully the small one will nap this afternoon. He went to bed late last night after polo, and still got up at 6:30 this morning. We had a grumpy whiny child on our hands this morning. Also, a lame one. Somehow he got hurt yesterday. Who knows how. So he's been limping around for a day.

So, I think we're ready. Maybe we'll ALL go take a nap now.

This is the way we prep for Irene...

Prep for Irene, prep for Irene. This is the way we prep for Irene, so early in the morning. (sing along, now).

So apparently there's a hurricane coming our way. Kind of a big one. Sure, we could bring in all our outside stuff, and buy batteries and eggs and milk and bread and fill our freezer with little baggies of water, that will hopefully freeze and keep the stuff in our freezer cold for longer.

Or, we could just go spend a Friday night watching polo.

Mr. Adam and Ms. Maria joined us for a little tailgating

The boys watch some polo

Usually they play in a big grass field, but we've had a crap-ton of rain here this month and the field was a little slick. So they played in the ring instead.

I swear we had fun tonight. But the looks on everyone's faces here says otherwise.

Maybe it had something to do with the need for ice...

For this here bee sting. Poor kid whimpered a little, but bounced back like a champ. First bee sting he's ever had, and he didn't die or anything. So hopefully he's not allergic.

Threatened to storm but it didn't. Made it pretty.

Dexter says "You are TWO"

And "Buddy is THREE"

Cute boys

Dex was jazzed driving home because the headlights were on, and it was still dark outside. And this kid is going on DAY THREE of not taking a nap. I swear, I'm gonna kill him soon...

Good thing he's cute.

Maria snagged a family shot of us. Waaaaay back there, in the dark, there's some polo ponies.

So, yeah. Bring it, hurricane. We're totally ready. We do, at least, have beer.

Huh. THAT was a first

I was just sitting on the couch surfing the internets (what I do best during nap time) and listening to the washing machine's spin cycle when suddenly the house started shaking and the hallway light started rattling and I wondered if we were in the midst of a tornado (quick glimpse outside to the blue sky and unmoving trees said no) or if the washing machine was just REALLY out of balance (quick glimpse in the laundry room said no) or if maybe... Hmmm. Can't be. We don't have earthquakes here.

And then John called. Did you feel that earthquake, he asks? OK. Good. so I'm NOT totally crazy.

Dexter just slept through his first earthquake. And I just had my first conscious memory of an earthquake. Sure, I've probably been through one before. But never remembered it. This one? 1:54 PM on Tuesday August 23. Earth (and house) quake.

Also, double huh. Quick google search sees a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Mineral, VA at 1:51 PM. Really? Earthquakes in Virginia? Just a few miles from where I used to live? And I could feel it here? Lots of driving hours away? Crazy.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc0005ild.html

Now I must go check Facebook...

Headphones on, broom in hand. Totally earthquake prepared...

Down Time

I am at my sister's house. Just me, an orange and white cat I have to keep pushing off my lap, a cup of coffee and milk, and a huge bucket of blueberries. There is no schedule. No agenda. No need to look at my watch to see when I need to start an activity so I can finish it in time for lunch and a nap. No need for a watch, really, but it's still on my wrist because life feels funny without it. No computer, no internet slowly sucking away the minutes of my life. I am writing on a piece of paper, my cramped hand reminding me that I haven't done this in a long time. It is used to hurried notes on Post-its and scribbles and lines on big dry erase boards. It doesn't remember how to write legibly on a yellow legal pad.

I am reading a book written by a mom of teen-aged boys, struggling to figure out who they are as she struggles to figure out how to be a mom to such changing beings. It strikes a chord. Makes me wonder if I need to re-examine. Plan less, be more spontaneous, say yes more, say no only when I must. Is the world really going to care if my two-year-old sits at the table with his legs hanging off the side of his chair, instead of the front? Why do I care, really, beyond just knowing that I told him once, and all the smart parenting books say you have to be consistent. If he had the ability to ask "why" when I told him to do something, I'm not sure I'd have an answer beyond "Because I said so."

Some time today, after another cup of coffee, seven more trips to the bathroom, and some more reading, I will head back to Lansing. Back to the house that I have known for all 37 years of my life. The house that inexplicably transforms me in to a sullen teenager, unsure how to act. The house I love despite how I dislike the way it makes me feel, physically and emotionally. I will head back to my husband and my dad and somehow try to make them realize that I love them and appreciate them and their efforts at a huge PA household renovation. I will tread lightly, as I know they are licking their wounds and healing their bruised egos. These are not boys who give up easily, and I know they are disappointed. I am not. They worked hard. They made some wonderful progress, and I look forward to seeing it. I will head back to my son who is wonderful and wondrous and quirky and cute, and at the same time tired and grouchy and testing boundaries and wholly, undeniably, two. And I will head back to my mom and try, once again, to right a relationship that I seem to always get wrong.

But not yet. There's more coffee. I've barely made a dent in the blueberries. There's another chapter of my book. And there is silence. Comfortable. Warm. Peaceful. Life will be there later. The world will manage without me for a few more hours.

This might be why John doesn't like me

Because I take video like this, and then when I watch it over and over and over again I continue laughing so hard that I cry. Every time. And John says, dude, you didn't laugh this hard at the playground. Somehow, it's funnier on video.

Apparently John's squirrel wasn't fast enough, so it needed a little encouragement.

This one's not hysterical. Just cute and makes me smile. I love watching the boys together.

We love this park because there's never anyone here. John is already looking forward to teaching Dex how to play baseball on the always vacant field. And it has a great parking lot in which to teach a kid to ride a bike.

Ball players

Click to watch Dex running the bases

Child is becoming a ridiculous camera ham, demanding pictures of himself any time a camera is in sight. Of course I oblige.