Dec
18
December 18, 2006
I’ll tell you what, I don’t think I’ll taunt the weather gods again with any jokey blog posts about how our local news makes such a Big Goddamned Deal about storms, because even though last Thursday night’s broadcast included footage of a reporter standing in front of a giant wind machine fan thing to demonstrate what 60 MPH winds felt like, which was so profoundly and perfectly stupid I made JB replay it three times in a row so we could add our own commentary and properly extract the most humor from the scene, by the time it was midnight and I was lying in bed staring round-eyed up at the ceiling wondering if the roof was just going to tear right off, or what, I was kind of regretting the fact that my very last communication with the world via the Internet would include a bad graphic that said “HOLY SHIT IT’S WINDY”, like ha ha HAAAA, isn’t it funny how people make such a big deal out of wind, what a bunch of pussies.
We lost power around 1 AM Friday morning, and as the heater died and the outside lights turned off and the weather went completely batshit outside with lightning and rain and apocalyptic horsemen, Cat managed to put aside her normal feelings of disgust for the occupants of the house that are not her, and scrambled onto the bed with us. Riley, thank god, slept through it all.
The next morning we drove around our neighborhood, and although I was grumpy that our house was freezing and dark and everything in the fridge was going to start rotting any minute and we were probably going to eat Chef Boyardee for dinner, I felt phenomenally lucky that our home was in one piece. Look:
Street debris near our house.
Ouch.
Double ouch.
Gross.
The only working gas station in the area, where we waited for an hour and a half on Friday.
Just up the road.
No one in those houses was hurt, thank god, but what a nightmare. That’s just the scenario I pictured in my head Thursday night, over and over: the groaning crackle, the whistle of branches and the tearing sound of the roots leaving the earth, and then massive collision as your roof comes down into your living room.
We heard an enormous crash at some point, which we couldn’t identify at the time, but I’m pretty sure it was this tree coming down in the park that’s at the end of the block:
The grocery store a couple blocks away had some power, enough for some lights and processing payment, but they had removed all the perishables. It was pretty creepy in there, dark and cold and full of people cleaning out the D batteries and ice. They somehow had part of the coffee bar open, and I wish I had taken a photo of the enormous line of people waiting to get their trembling, caffeine-withdrawal-palsied fix.
(I wanted to wait in the line, too, but JB said NOFNWAY.)
The power came back on Friday evening, and although we had made a fairly comfortable setup out of a pile of blankets, half a billion votive candles, and JB’s laptop running Kill Bill, it was an incredible relief to have the appliances start clicking on and the heat come alive with a whoosh. We had to sneak into Riley’s room and carefully peel him out of the 3 layers of pajamas we’d wrapped him in, so he wouldn’t wake up in a puddle of sweat.
I figured everything would be back to normal Saturday morning, but apparently we were in a very lucky pocket area that had power restored, because many of the surrounding neighborhoods were still dark. No lights, no heat. It was 30 degrees on Saturday morning, same on Sunday.
JB now thinks we should get a wood stove, among other things. This is a man who obsessively stocked our Las Vegas garage with cases of MREs and water before Y2K, and has a camping gear checklist with at least seventy-five items on it. Preparing For Disaster is one of his favorite mental exercises, and I suspect in the wake of this storm he will quietly fill our garage with batteries, propane, emergency blankets, and stacks of those godawful military meals.
Anyway, lessons learned:
• Mocking the local news approach to weather may possibly result in catastrophic statewide damage, and won’t you feel stupid then.
• Always have a shitload of candles on hand, even if, once lit, they create a clashing olfactory scenario that can really only be described as “floral, yet horrific”.
• Prepare child for the surprising taste of powdered milk by distraction: look at Daddy carrying the chainsaw! Isn’t Daddy funny? Be ready to comfort child if said image of father wielding Texas-Massacre-esque saw is visually disturbing.
There have been a few deaths from this storm, from falling trees and one particularly horrible story of a woman who drowned in her basement when it filled with water from Thursday’s torrential downpour. People who are still without heat (in what has unfortunately turned into bitterly cold weather) are bringing grills and hibachis inside to try and stay warm, and becoming poisoned by carbon monoxide.
Here’s hoping by the time I can hit publish on this entry, life will be getting back to normal for everyone in the area. Stay warm, friends.
Dec
14
December 14, 2006
Ooh, thank you so much for your suggestions! What would I do without you guys? Wander the earth, alone and ill-read, sporting unattractive raccoon eyes, that’s what.
I particularly enjoyed all your book recommendations, and I’d love to see some kind of conceptual data model (the kind with overlapping circles, what are they called…Venn diagrams?) of the various book titles so we could see all the common themes. It’s oddly fascinating to know so many of you have read Seabiscuit, Time Traveler’s Wife, and Lamb: The Gospel.
I’m going to (nerdily) collate your recommendations together and next time I’m at the bookstore or library I will be PREPARED. And I can kick the copy of “The Emotional Life of the Toddler” off my nightstand because seriously, it’s great and all to understand my child might be internally conflicted with feelings of attachment and independence, and that’s why he’s eating a rock, but I can only take so much toddler navel-gazing. Unless of course we’re talking about his actual navel, which I could happily stare at all day long.
(It’s a combo outie/innie! And it demands a blowfart at least once per day.)
Seattle is supposed to get some kind of massive windstorm this evening, which I’m not looking forward to because we had some high winds yesterday that dropped all kinds of tree detritus on the roof, scared Dog, and resulted in an hours-long interruption of cable service, which wiped out our internet connection, phone, and TV in one fell swoop (hilariously, we received a flyer in yesterday’s mail reminding us “THAT’S COMCASTIC!” Bite my dong, Comcast). It was like living in the DARK AGES, OMG. I’m kidding, but it was surprisingly annoying to have the internet down – it’s a little freaky how much I rely on it for everything from movie reviews (IMDB could have possibly saved us from World Trade Center, which in my opinion was schmaltzy, formulaic, and entirely unemotional despite all the heavy-handed sentimentality. Also, Nicolas Cage in a semi-porny mustache = disturbing) to recipes to fact-checking to good old fashioned websurfing (IE, the list of worst toys ever made).
High winds are always bad after a shitload of rain, so I hope this storm passes with relatively little damage. Also, I hope the local news refrains from calling it WINDSTORMWATCH 2006, but I won’t hold my breath. Those of you who live in the area, what do you want to bet some poor fucker is hunched over a copy of Photoshop right now, furiously working on a properly dire image to accompany the weather updates tonight?
In other news, the boy had a checkup yesterday and he’s at the 50th percentile for weight, 75th for height, and 90th (again) for head size. I fear he will have to wear custom-made hats someday.
His doctor ran through a list of various developmental questions – is he talking a little, is he walking, blah blah, and then she asked if he was stacking things. I lied and said yes, because I felt that although I haven’t witnessed him stacking his toys, exactly (he likes to throw his stacking rings under the couch), if he’s able to take a phone over to JB when I say, “Brrr-ing! Hello? Oh, it’s for Daddy. Can you take the phone to Daddy?” and wait with panting openmouthed excitement for the moment when JB says “Hello? Oh! Well, I think you’re going to have to talk to my SON about this,” and hands the phone back to him, so he can hold it somewhat near his head while jabbering intently in Toddler-ese…well, fuck it, he’s not getting a black mark for “Doesn’t Stack; Is Dumb” or whatever. Take that, Milestone Police!
This doctor also called him “Zachary” on at least five occasions during the visit, so frankly I don’t think she’s meeting her own milestones. “Repeatedly Refers to Patient By Wrong Name; Is Dumb”, that’s what I’m marking on her sheet.
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