The Documentary

This is my husband, Duane. Doesn't he look dashing sporting his newly scruffy facial hair grown during the "no electricity" days of Hurricane Ike? I really like it. I think he looks sort of cute and dignified. And anyways, he's probably going to need it this winter to help him stay warm, as we keep hearing old wives tales that after a bad hurricane you have an extra cold winter...which for Houston could mean we drop into the 30's or something.

But back to the documentary. And one last hurricane story.

We were going into day ten without power, and it was getting warmer. Well, to be honest, it was back to normal - hot and muggy. I was getting out of the shower and Duane was relaxing in bed watching TV (our morning treat, thanks to the generator cord stretching through our bedroom window.) On the tv was a black cat that looked strangely like our Edgar (see post from Wednesday, September 24) and all these crabs walking out of the sea and up the beach. The following conversation ensued:

Me: "What are you watching?"

Duane: "A documentary."

Me: "It's in Spanish. You don't speak Spanish!"

Duane: "Oh."

Ten days without power can make you crazy.

I Think I'm Done With Hurricanes

What i really learned from Ike (taken from a very funny email, but most actually verified by personal experience):

1. Frozen pizzas can actually be made on the BBQ grill

2. No matter how many times you flick the switch, lights don't work without electricity

3. The Astros can't beat the Cubs in Milwaukee, especially on two hours sleep (Thanks for ruining our playoff chances, Bud Selig!)

4. He who has the biggest generator wins

5. Kids can survive longer than four days without a video controller in their hands

6. Walking around your home in the dark should be a new Olympic sport

7. When required, a Lincoln Continental can float. Doesn't steer well, but floats just the same

8. Your water front property can quickly become someone else's fishing hole

9. Crickets can increase their volumn to overcome the sound of 14 generators

10. If my store sold only ice, chain saws, gas, and generators...i'd be rich

11. Tree service companies are greatly underappreciated

12. People will get into a line that has already formed without having any idea what the line is for

13. There are a lot more stars in the sky than most people thought

14. There are a lot of freakin' trees around here

before and after clean up

The Chronicles of Hurricane Central, Still Continued

Part Three: Random things about hurricanes that I never thought about before and random things that happened because of the hurricane

1. Two days after the hurricane, I finally saw a few birds again. Where do birds go in a hurricane anyways?

2. You can tell who the people are who don't have power yet. They have "hurricane hair"...a little flatter than the normal blow-dried coiffure.

3. You can’t buy baking soda in a single grocery store in Houston. And you need baking soda, because everything starts stinking after a while…like the drains and the musty insides of empty refrigerators and freezers that have lost a load of food to spoilage.

4. It takes twice as long to get anywhere after a hurricane, because none of the traffic signal lights are working and every intersection has to be treated like a four way stop. Trust me, it's dangerous to drive in Mexico without traffic lights, but it's MORE dangerous to drive in Houston without them.

5. My climbing rose bush was blown totally over on one side of the fence. And it never came back to the other side. Weird.

6. If i paid a kid a nickle for every pine cone he picked up in my yard, i could fund his college education.

7. I am dreaming a lot. Haven’t really dreamed like this in years. Of course since we didn't have power we went to bed about 8:30 – 9:00 when it got dark so we were getting a deeper and longer rest.

8. Oak is definitely heavier than pine. And pecan wood smells good. This was noticed after dragging tree limbs around the yard for a while.

9. It is well with my soul.

The Chronicles of Hurricane Central Continued

Part Two: The Cat

This is Edgar. He's the best mouser we've ever had. I think it's because he's inherently evil and likes to kill things....be it a wiggling foot or some other REAL threat.

The world as Edgar knows it was turned upside down by IKE. We found him hiding in the laundry room, behind the washer (no small feat), and he actually scaled the back of the washing machine to escape. It took him two full days to get the nerve to actually go outside, before Duane finally booted him out the front door. Where he sat firmly on the front porch and refused to budge.

Until a rat ran by.

Let's just say he recovered nicely.

The Chronicles of Hurricane Central: After the Tempest

Part One: Tranquility in the tempest

A synonym for hurricane is tempest. The antonym for tempest is tranquility or serenity. I like being able to combine tranquility and tempest. I think it says something important about your core.

Another synonym for tempest is brouhaha. I like “brouhaha” because you can’t really say it without laughing, and you can’t really live through a hurricane without being able to laugh, as well. I wish I could find a “b” word that means the same as tranquility to combine with brouhaha, so I could use the word brouhaha and alliterate the title of this post, but I can’t find one. We can try “Bradycardia in the Brouhaha.” Bradycardia is a medical term for a very slow heartbeat, which in our case would mean we were absolutely very very tranquil…

In the early morning hours of Saturday, September 13, Hurricane Ike, a Catagory 2 hurricane, made a direct hit on Galveston, Texas. Though we are in Northwest Houston, we are only 62 miles from Galveston. The winds came through Houston at breakneck speed. We lost power about 1:30 a.m. We didn’t wake up until we started hearing the roof creaking and moaning at about 2:30. I got up and looked out at the trees whipping around in the wind, but since neither Duane or I have a spirit of fear, I crawled back in bed next to him and went back to sleep. Once he mentioned something sounded like doors slamming, but we decided it was just limbs hitting the roof and rolling off.

I don’t think Duane ever got up, what could he do, after all? Neither the winds nor the waves obey him… so at first light, about 6ish, we crawled out of bed to see what was still standing.

Since we’ve been without power or internet for ten days, the next few days I will catch you up on life in the city, post- Ike. But first, we want to give honor to the Father for the mercies He showered on us through the storm. Let’s just call them Hurricane Mercies:

1. We lost power, but we never lost water. You can handle a lot, if you can still flush the toilet and take a shower at night.

2. There was no damage to the house, except maybe a little leak in the breakfast room. All the trees fell away from the house.

3. We were kept safe.

4. Sunday afternoon, one day into “no power”, our neighbor’s dad came from Austin with the last two gas generators in town. We had $760 cash on hand to purchase the generator off his truck.

5. With no power, even if there is gas you are unable to pump it. Gas lines were long because so few stations had power and were open. But we were always able to find gas when we needed it.

6. Duane had cold milk even after two days without power. (he loves his cold milk.)

7. We didn’t lose the muscadine juice I had frozen for future batches of muscadine jelly.

8. We were kept from fear.

9. Our phone worked all day Saturday, during the storm and for 24 hours afterwards before it died. We were able to touch base with and check on our friends/family.

10. We could always text, even if cell phones didn’t work.

11. The first cool front of the season came through the day after Ike, so we didn’t have the usual September temperatures in the 90’s. It was in the high 70’s all week, from Sunday until the next Saturday. People would have gotten hostile, if it had been hot.

12. There were no mosquitoes from the Saturday Ike hit til the next Sunday. NO MOSQUITOES. And I mean no mosquitoes, in Houston, in September, after a hurricane.

13. Talked to, worked alongside, broke bread, and visited with neighbors, previously unknown.

14. We were still able to minister to those around us. Duane felt led to start an ICE ministry in the neighborhood. He got people with generators to freeze ice for people without generators. Every day at 5:00 he went around and picked up ice from neighbors to deliver to other neighbors so they could keep the remaining food in their ice chests cold.

That's it for now. I've gotten used to going to bed when it gets dark, and it's waaaay past my bedtime now!