Survive and thrive after Windstorm 2008

During the windstorm, a church in my area changed their message on their roadside marquee to read “NO POWER”. This made me sad to think that perhaps the church had closed its doors to its members. In fact, I had considered going to this church, since I could walk from my home to its front door….

Anyway, the Saturday evening that I got my power back on, I noticed the outside lights on this church were operational. However, their marquee still read “NO POWER”.

_{then, two little schmendricks went up to the sign and updated its message a little…}

Today, more than a week after the electricity was restored, the sign remains unchanged.

Are they grateful? Or …?

_{I hope grateful!}

One thing I really like about my new job is the schedule. I work 8.5 hours each day, Monday through Thursday. The total required hours for the week are 38.5, so the office essentially closes at midday every Friday. This leaves time for errands and events to be accomplished during “banker’s hours”, without having to sacrifice a lunch hour or miss time from work.

Today, my sweetheart man picked me up from work, and we ran some errands together. As he drove, I watched outside the window for signs of the storm that has now left us, but left behind a lot of damage. Every area of town still had tree services and roofers busily working to try to restore what is, to what used to be.

I was starting to get sad again, remembering all the wreckage from Florida that I thought I had escaped, never to see again. I started seeing the blue tarps over the roofs of several houses, and my memories of whether I was here or in Florida started to blur.

Then, I saw this sign, and it put it all back into perspective. In Florida, every single year, the metereologists come up with a new set of names for all the predicted and possible tropical storms and hurricanes. In 2005, the year that I left, there were so many that the chart ran out of names….

Here, this sign says it all – everyone around here keeps telling me this was a once-in-a-lifetime or at least once-in-20-years occurrence. I sure hope they are right, but even this local business seems to confidently display their opinion….

I got my electricity back late on Saturday night. Then, the interior cleanup of the defrosted refrigerator and other assorted messes could begin. I lost some more of my perishables in one of the coolers I was using as a makeshift refrigerator, but all in all it functioned quite well.

There are still remnants and reminders around the house of the past week. There are tree limbs to collect and discard, and there is a broken gutter to fix. Right now it is temporarily and oh-so-attractively repaired with duct tape, that gleams silver in the sun….

However, I decided that instead of spending tonight lamenting over more defrosted items in the cooler or stowing away more extension cords, I am going out with my sweetheart man!

We are going to one of those fancy steakhouses downtown, that are expensive but magical. I am wearing a brand new dress that I had been saving for a special occasion, royal blue and flowing and just low-cut enough that I think my sweetheart man will be pleased. My hair is styled, which is something I hadn’t been able to do to my liking for the past week without electricity.

I’m very excited about our date, and I keep waiting to hear the anticipated car pull up in the driveway to pick me up (he was out running a quick errand), just as he used to in the beginning of our courtship.

Ooooh! I think that’s the door!

_{scampering off to meet him}

I apologize to my subscribers for having not posted in the last several days. My area of the country (Midwest) was taken by surprise by the remnants of Hurricane Ike. I’ve been without electricity since last Sunday morning. My sweetheart man is here to help (and frustrate, LOL!), but we are in this for the long haul.

We are learning to face disasters together.

I am learning to wipe the clay from his muddy feet.

I am also learning that there are parts of myself that are still broken from my experiences in the 2004-2005 Florida hurricanes that I fled. I thought I would be safe here.

But I’m learning that safe, does not mean, trouble-free….

My new job is at a major insurance company, and now the entire company has become the Claims department (or at least volunteers like myself). I’m talking with customers 4-5 hours a day (in addition to my regular department responsibilities) in order to help process claims. In the most basic sense, I am still in the healing process, the process that many of our customers are just beginning for themselves.

However, things aren’t nearly as bad as they were for me back in Florida. My neighborhood is safe, my house and its basic structure is safe. The generator that I acquired in Florida but couldn’t defend properly is in heavy use here. It’s keeping my basement freezers running, and sometimes lets me have an indulgence like a fan or an hour of TV.

No computer access, however, except at the library, and not until today—most of my city was without electricity, but the lights are coming on slowly.

Lights on our porches, and lights in my little fuzzy brain.

I have some to teach, but much more to learn.

More later, I just got the 10-minute warning at the library terminal…