Sistah Pat

I’m exhausted!  The last couple of days have been so crazy I don’t know where to begin.  Last time I blogged, I was taking off for a shopping spree in Indiana.  DH and I took Manny the RV up to Edinburgh and parked at an RV park right across from the Outlet Mall.  I was able to walk right across the street and shop till I was ready to drop.  I spent Saturday afternoon in Coldwater Creek and got some fabulous clothes.  When I went back to the RV, DH wanted to go out for dinner and drinks and I decided to take the evening off from eating healthy.  Had a few fattening “girlie” drinks and some fattening appetizers and generally had a great time which didn’t end until late into the night! 

We slept in Sunday morning and, about the time I was getting ready to head back across the street, DH heard that the remnants of Ike were headed our way in just a couple hours so he wanted to head home.  Since I’d already gotten lots of goodies at Coldwater Creek, I was okay with leaving and we ran into vicious winds for the next hour and a half as we drove home.  A couple miles before our exit, traffic was stopped on the interstate because a tree had broken and fallen in the right hand lane.  We had to sit in traffic and the wind just kept getting worse.  Manny is a big old boy and he’s hard to handle when it’s windy so we were glad to finally pull into the driveway at home.  Shortly after we arrived, the winds became even worse, downright vicious actually, and civil defense sirens started going off.  Because of our big trees, we moved our cars and Manny into a big field across the street from us where they wouldn’t be at risk of being crushed by a tree limb.  For three or four hours, we suffered winds of hurricane force (they actually got up to 85 mph) and I watched my poor neighborhood suffer terrible damage.  My neighborhood is very well established and is full of huge old maples, oak trees, and Bradford pears.  I try to take good care of my trees and we just had them thinned out and cleaned up a couple of years ago so mine were okay but many of the trees were uprooted and fell on houses and cars.  Huge branches came crashing down and pulled down power lines all over the city.  My next door neighbor lost a huge tree that fell on his truck and the neighbor next to him lost his roof and back porch.  It’s unbelievable how much damage was done.  300,000 without power in the city of Louisville alone.  The meteorologists said the effect was caused by an unusual phenomenom of the remnants of Ike colliding with a cold front and the winds were much more severe than they would ordinarily have been.  When it was all over, our power was out and I headed down the road to find some pizza or something for dinner.  After a few miles of backtracking and wandering around trying to find roads that weren’t blocked by downed trees or power lines, I came upon a stretch of highway that still had power and stood in line for almost an hour to pick up a bucket of fried chicken for dinner. 

We went out to the RV and turned on the TV and they were saying school would be cancelled for today because more than 100 schools in our district were without power and almost 60% of the traffic lights were out in Louisville.  Looking up and down the street, I could see that Manny was the only power source in sight so I fired up the crock pot and threw in a bunch of little weiners and sausages from the freezer and we set up the outside TV on the RV.   Several neighbors dragged their lawn chairs (the ones that hadn’t blown away) over to join us watching the news bulletins.  Somebody brought beers and it kind of became an impromptu block party.

We kept the RV parked across the road and spent the night in it.  This morning, we moved it back into the driveway and ran extension cords to the freezer and refrigerator in the house.  The mayor is saying it will be anywhere from a week to ten days to get electical power restored to everyone.  Following that announcement, I inventoried the freezer and headed for the store.  A few miles up the road, I found a Kroger open and got all the necessities.  Kroger surprised me with their generosity and I hope people remember it.  They were making up meat and cheese platters with loaves of bread and fruit and selling them at cost.  I bought what I needed to try to use up the most expensive items in the freezer because we decided to run Manny’s generator for two hours and then turn it off for two hours to try to conserve gas.  Manny has a big old tank and we just filled it up before heading to Indiana but the lines at the few gas stations that are open are unbelievably long and I didn’t want to waste gas in case our electric was out for a week or so.   Luckily, our power came back on about 30 minutes ago.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m delighted and I know how fortunate I am, but I just got the RV and house set up for an extended run without electrical power.  On top of that…I have a huge crock pot full of Con Queso for tonight’s “block party”.  Guess we’re going to be eating a lot of nachos (and crackers and pimento cheese, and more little weiners, and salsa and chips).

I’m so lucky that my house is undamaged and all my loved ones are okay.  The worst damage I have is to my flower beds.  The winds were so strong, they literally scoured my plants.  Many of them have lost all their leaves and some of them were completely uprooted.  My weeping cherry tree and some of the other plants look like they’ve been burned.  The leaves are withered and brown.  I have a pile of leaves and small branches about ten feet high that we’ve managed to drag out to the curb but the yard is still a mess.  Most of the limbs and debris came from my neighbor’s trees and blew into our yard.  Our trees came it through it pretty well unscathed.  The wildlife seems lost.  Squirrels are running around on the highways looking for trees and branches that aren’t there anymore.  A flock of starlings has been circling the area all day, resting in a tree, and then moving on to another (please, don’t let them get attached to one of my trees!).  I’m sure they’ve lost their homes.  I haven’t seen any hummingbirds or finches today.  All the little critters must be in shock.

They just announced that school will be cancelled again tomorrow.  The news anchor said Ike hit the Texas coast with winds at 100 mph.  Due to the freaky phenomenon, we got it at 85 mph in a 70 mile wide path with Louisville at the center of it.  Driving around the area is unbelievable.  I can’t get over how many trees are uprooted and how many homes are damaged.  We have tornados in Kentucky…not hurricaines.

Am I upset about any of this?  No, absolutely not.  How could I possibly be upset about losing a few flowers when so many have lost so much.  I’m so thankful for all I have (and for a couple extra days off work). (smile)