Irene: How it went down

First of all, I never thought myself to be an over-reactor.  If anything, an under-reactor.  And then this hurricane business was going on.  As in previous post, we've had freakish weather for a year straight and then months ago we eastcoaster church-goers were given special instruction to prepare for a hurricane.  When i heard we were having a special lesson on that i said, "Oh great. I hate these lessons. I always get so paranoid! I just want to live in ignorance. Let me enjoy that."   And then we had the lesson, and everyone kept listing things that would be handy to have in a life-saving situation and the spark of paranoia grew and grew.  Someone mentioned a solar-powered battery charger hooked on a backpack. Well that sounds handy.  Every hypothetical situation you can imagine was being presented to me as a possibility to our reality/impending DOOM. 

 And so I began buying stuff, as i mentioned earlier.  Cans of this here.  Boxes of stuff there.  And I'm going to blame a large part of my crazy on now having a wee one to look after.  I feel so inept so much of the time just in the day-to-day. Like, oh maybe i should be teaching him things that will help shape his future and potential for success in life.  It weighs on a person, you know?  I'm pretty sure if it had just been me and Sean, i'd be tempted to buy a canoe just to float down the river-streets because--wahoo! I like being in places doing things that were never meant to be done there, i.e. i used to hang upside down on the living room furniture and imagine rolling across the ceiling in my roller skates (but who didn't do that).  And I liked to sit in the bushes when it snowed, making the bushes habitable and even comfortable. I'm pretty sure I talked about this already. Yep.   Anyway, but yeah, not so much this time.

Watching the news is a ridiculous mistake one should never make.  The city's in lockdown. They shut down the MTA for the first time EVER (not due to strikes or things like such as).  Everything's unprecedented and mysterious.  Every precaution is being made under words like "disaster,"  "mandatory evacuations,"  "catastrophic,"  and "inevitable doom." Friday afternoon i ran out and bought the corner store out of their gallon waters and had them heave a flat of 1-litter water bottles on top for good measure.    Every channel is showing nonstop storm coverage.  And all we can do is wait.  Wait and watch the sky.  It gets darker. The clouds start swirling.  Pretty sure i'm imagining things--did i just see devil horns in the clouds??  We wait.  We wait and we wait and we wait.  And the wait is awful.  I nearly went mad from it.  We tried to enjoy our last momentsr   the Saturday but the tension was thick and itchy. 

They tell us the hurricane will arrive in our area around 10pm that night, getting increasingly stronger until the most intense part, coming at around 8am the next day.  Then they tell us to go to bed and we'll just "see what happens in the morning."   Well, as the night progresses Sean and I get a little bit more jumpy, a little bit more insane.  He's feverishly packing the 72-hour kit and everything I'm doing makes zero sense whatsoever, but all in the name of emergency preparedness.  

Checking facebook every 3 seconds, feeling the need to confess all my wrongdoings.  I had a g-chat with a friend who was feeling similar feelings of giddiness.  I'll paste it here:

We'll change her name to "Minsey" and her husband "Mrian" to protect the innocent:

Minsey: i am so hyper

  ???

  i feel like i will not sleep tonight

11:08 PM me: i know!

  i'm insane

 Minsey: i feel like we should be having a big partyMinsey: with all this nervous energy

 me: ohhhh i'm hyper in a different way

 me: just now i was like, "I FEEEEL... I feel like we should boil some eggs! for egg salad.. because..!! for sandwiches..!! and if we can't use the stove, they're useless.. yeah?? Yeah?!? I'll do it right now!!"

11:09 PM 

 linsey: hahaha

   Mrian went to CVS at 3 in the morning last night

  just because

  in case there was something there we might need

11:10 PM me: what did he get??

11:11 PM Minsey: more water, ibuprofen, paper goods

  all things we already had

 me: ha ha

 Minsey: but for the last three days i just felt like we should KEEP buying things

  KEEP preparing

 me: it's amazing the things you think you need to stock up on...

  yeah!

  stock stock stock

 Minsey: and even if you have an ungodly amount, you think--but i might need MORE

  or even if you KNOW you dont need more

 me: you just don't KNOW

11:12 PM Minsey: your body just urges you to keep hoarding

 me: yeah!

  now i know what it feels like to be a hoarder

 Minsey: or a squirrel

 me: ha ha, exactly

  i feel like we're in a war

  and we're in a bomb shelter, waiting for the enemy missiles

 Minsey: i know!

  you don't know where its going to strike

11:13 PM me: you can only wait

 Minsey: the only helpful thing you could do is build a forcefield

 me: or a fort

  maybe that's what we'll do tomorrow

  we'll make it a game--for julian.

11:14 PM and he'll laugh and squeal and won't see the fear behind our eyes

11:17 PM Minsey: haha

  what time is it supposed to hit us?

11:18 PM me: they say the worst at 8am i think

  so when you wake up and your bed is floating down the street

 Minsey: hahaha

  assuming i fall asleep at all

 me: right??

 Minsey: i have some MAJOR adrenaline

11:19 PM i should channel it into cleaning

 me: they're all, "so, go to bed, get a good night's rest.. but we're probably ALL GONNA DIE"

 linsey: hahahaha

  exactly

 me: have you been watching the news? Ughsville

 Minsey: what is the point of being well rested for heaven

  no, Mrian is watching some depressing movie while i "work" aka chat with friends

11:20 PM me: work shmrk. you can't take it with you

 Minsey: right

 me: reminder to self: tape up garbage bag over AC

 Minsey: ooo good idea

  what other gems do you have?

  what are you doing with julians room

  i put my kids to bed with the ac going cause its so bloody humid

  and they get so hot

11:21 PM me: nothing. he's nestled between window rooms...

 Minsey: lucky

 me: lately we have been keeping our bedroom door open so he can get our AC and we shut off the big one in the kitchen

 Minsey: what do you suggest?

 me: so we'll just keep it going and hopefully not get sprayed in the face

  i don't know.. it is so danged hot

11:22 PM sean says he thinks you have to turn off the AC if stuff starts coming in

 Minsey: ok

11:23 PM i feel like sean knows much of survival skills in all circumstances

11:24 PM if he could build a multi tiered pizza oven on a dime i imagine he could fashion a raft or a fortress or even a new brownstone in a pinch

 me: it's true

11:25 PM i was like, "I'm glad we have all this wood in the hall now!" He said, "why?" "you know.. for.. building something.. if we need it. you can do that, right?"

 Minsey: i wish we were neighbors more than even tonight

  write a funny blog post to lift your readers spirits

  also

11:26 PM the SECOND i read about that charger/flashlight contraption you posted about i immediately tried to order one

  but i was too late

  it wouldn't have arrived until tuesday

  THANKS FOR NOTHING AMAZON AND YOUR WORTHLESS OVERNIGHT SHIPPING

11:27 PM me: i bought it when it was CLEARLY too late

  i thought maybe somehow by just buying it, it would keep us safe

 Minsey: wait so it didn't come??

11:28 PM me: no! i bought it too late. i didn't even do overnight. i was like, "Ahh.. i don't want to pay extra shipping.." like an IDIOT.

  All of my actions are completely nonsensical

11:29 PM Minsey: haha

  oh well sean can build you one

 me: right

  and, sean dug around our bottomless storage shelves of wonders and mysteries and came up with an emergency whistle w/compass AND a headlamp

11:30 PM Minsey: even better!

7 minutes

11:37 PM me: ok i'm going to bed.. to lie awake... and listen to the trees falling and people wailing.

11:38 PM stay safe over there!!

  my eggs are done!!!

 Minsey: hahaha

  "stay safe" is the K.I.T. of the week

11:39 PM me: ha ha

  totally is

 
***********************

I thought that pretty well summed up the feeling of things over here. 

Anyway, so fast-forward to the next day, when we meet our doom. Except i woke up, having slept all night, to a bit of rain, a bit of wind. that's all.   I never saw anything.  Few twigs on the ground.  Sean said he got up several times in the night to check on things but he never noticed super strong winds.  Maybe because of the way we're situated. Maybe because we're on the ground floor.   So he had a restless sleep but i slept through the whole night!  And nothing ever happened.  No flooding, no power outages, no survival strategies required. I mean, there was some evidence of Irene--neighborhoods did get flooded and there were several downed trees around the city, from what i could see.  But for us it impacted us very little.  Am i disappointed? Kind of.  I'd like something to show for my Crazy.  But also, i'm glad we didn't have to actually do things like evacuate, eat nothing but cans of black beans and green beans and Cliff bars.  It was just such a huge emotional roller coaster; i don't really know how to feel. 

And that's what happened.  I don't know why; i don't know how.  I guess she was all bark and no bite? At least not for us.  Maybe we were in the path of her eye?   I don't know. But I do know that i have an insane amount of water and no real story to tell.  

And that's how it went down.  Thanks for thinking of us (and thanks for nothing to those who never commented--what if i had died, huh?? What IF).  I was truly and honestly very very panicky and nervous. I will probably spend the next few days coming down from that and might hoard bits of food here and there.