Murphy's Law

So, it is Monday afternoon, and here is our kitchen:

I look a wee bit ... lazy? Behind? No: superstitious. Gary and I decided that we would wait a bit longer to dump out all our water. Last report we saw 81% of those hit by Ike did not have power, and yes - we are thrilled to be part of that 19%, but every time the power goes out - it is not real stable - we panic a bit. Houston has been told to boil there water, and I am just positive - as soon as we dump all this water - our water supply will become defiled also in some way.

It's about 2:00pm and Gary and Ryan have been gone since 9:00am. The ward members decided to head to an older area here that was hit hard and rove around in packs fixing things. I guess people let them since they have been gone over 5 hours. But ... they will be home soon. They have been pacing the floor like caged animals. During the power outage, I was fine to lay in bed with a battery operated fan blowing on me and read a book. Gary read during intermittent periods of pacing, but Ryan?

Ryan on the other hand, just stared / paced / asked if he could just drive around (no, the news said NO ONE on the roads) / paced / sighed / whined / asked me what he could do. I said: "Read a book, do your homework, go for a walk, make lunch, build Dads legos for his scout merit badge day, go jogging, listen to your ipod, clean your room, pick up your crap in the house, take the garbage out, read the Time magazine you stole from me yesterday, watch a movie on the laptop – it is charged, put the dishes I washed away, play one of your handheld games." "So,” he says "there is nothing to do?" (yes, you could be strangled by your mother …). Ryan did not have school last Friday and now: Monday and Tuesday. With electricty and the internet there is more for him to do, but still - if they stayed out until late Tuesday night, I wouldn't mind.

Jessie is on her way back to Richmond State School today - based on a message I get when I call RSS. It said I would get a call when she was back. It will be good to know she is back and settled. Gary will be in London for a couple of weeks (he is fleeing to London tomorrow ... that pacing, boredom, caged up like an animal thing ...), but I think I can handle getting her and dropping her off on my own one of these days.

Sunset on Hurricane Ike

Snapped a photo of Saturday nights sunset:

We were busy watching the ending of a movie when I snapped this photo. We had started it Friday, prepared and bored, just waiting for Ike to hit, when the power went out at 9:00pm. The storm hit us and pounded on our house from about midnight to 6:00am - Gary slept through it all. We were fairly comfortable (no air conditioning) since we did not heed the advice to sleep in an interior room of the house - which would have been our laundry room or one of our master bedroom closets and just slept in our beds. Although Gary did put a pad in each of our closets so if it got really bad (or, I guess if he woke up) we could go in there and sleep.

We came out just fine - even my plant morgue doesn't look too bad. The boys were bored all day with no power, no air conditioning - with just books and a radio to keep us updated. The radio had said power might not be restored to some areas for 2 - 3 weeks. We were mortified ... and luckily, not one of them. Our power came back on that evening at about 6:00pm.

We were without cable TV or internet, so unable to watch the news still, but just having air conditioning and not losing everything in our fridge and freezer made it seem trivial. Many people, even in our ward and surrounding areas still do not have power - so all the more thankful.

Internet arrived Sunday about 24 hours after power was restored - so now: completely back to normal.

Thanks for your e-mails (got them on my phone), phone calls, concern, thoughts and prayers.

Hurry Up and Wait

Received phone calls from a few of you and just thought that I would give a 'status report'. Gary and Ryan are out getting lunch somewhere since they are bored. We have been watching the news (man ... commercials are as annoying as I remember). They are saying the winds - hopefully where we are just 50 - 70 mph - will start about midnight and continue for 12 or more hours - so straight through the night. They are saying to stay in an interior room. Our options: Gary's master closet, my master closet or the laundry room - way too much family togetherness!!

The laundry room at least has the freezer - which has 120 bottles of frozen water in it. We hear that electricity going out is a given, but for how long, don't know. We have the water and big chunks of ice that will hopefully keep things OK for a while. We might have to have a really big barbecue at some point after the storm! Since there are a bunch of evacuated missionaries with the Randall's, Normans and others in the ward maybe we have a big missionary dinner. We signed up a month ago to feed the missionaries on Sunday ...
We have enough water, and a walk in pantry full of food, so we are set:

Plus we have pulled out our 72 hour kits - which expire in just a few days since I made them last year at an enrichment night in September. We have radios, flashlights, first aid kits ... all we need is the cards and we are in for ooodles of fun all night long.

The weather right now is fine - getting a bit windy, but we plan on watching DVD's all day and trying not to kill each other. Then - who knows - maybe we all will be assigned to our own walk in closet - sequester ourselves for survival.


Glad I let Jessie evacuate with RSS - it would have been a mess with her here - especially if the power goes out (I hear it is a when and for how long - but I don't know if I should believe the news people -they seem to be sensationalizing everything).


If we lose power for very long - we will make any repairs that need to be made - then take Connie up on her offer and head to Dallas for a visit. Thanks Dallas Hurst's.

.... Something tells me Gary is not flying to London on Sunday ....

Lori's Plant Morgue

I called this section of our patio my 'Plant Infirmary', where I took plants that were 'sick' inside to get some sun. Gary and Ryan call it my 'Plant Morgue': where Lori's plants go to die - so it should probably be called 'Lori's Plant Hospice'.

All the plants I planted one day in a fit of gardening madness have miraculously survived my neglect and abuse. Apparently that works for them. With the hurricane a'comin, I thought that I would take photos just in case ....

I have photographic evidence that I have actually kept a few plants alive. But I have to confess ... the pretty pink flowers on the weird spiky plant in the two big pots? I didn't plant that. I saw one little spiky thingy one day amongst the dead plants inhabiting one of the pots and it spread to the other pot. All there was was one pink flower for the longest time. They are weird flowers - they close up most of the day and all night, but when the sun hits the area, they open up for just a few hours. I will have to find out what it is. Any ideas? Here is a close up:

Each of the bud like looking things eventually becomes a flower. Dies a few days later and falls off. I personally think it is my magic statue / water feeder keeping everything alive - I got it just about the same time ...

Ah, well, Ryan just called and said school is cancelled tomorrow due to the hurricane, Gary is flying home tonight instead of tomorrow night ... I guess plants are the least of my troubles right now.

Gota go.

Hurricanes, Evacuations and Tornados

We watched news reports while living in Norway on hurricanes Katrina and Rita. International News reports: vastly different from what I was reading on the internet on MSNBC.com. If there is one thing I learned about the the news while living abroad is that you can take any story and 'spin' it however you want. The gist was always for ANYTHING that the Americans were a 'bloody incompetent lot'. It got old, so I stopped watching much news. Even now I surf the web for my news, I don't even know my cable station number for CNN, NBC ... none of 'em.

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We got back and noticed something odd - people had changed when it came to hurricanes. The word that comes to mind is 'skittish'. It seemed as if they were / are always over reacting and since we were not here - whatever had happened to them, had not happened to us. So this summer we have just shook our heads over some of the things going on.

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Jessie is being evacuated tomorrow to Brenham State school till I don't know when. Gary is catching an early flight home on Friday since his company was suggesting this, and Ryan and I discussed it all while renewing his drivers license and eating out. We were shaking our heads.

Then, this evening I remembered ...

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I remember the day a tornado hit our other house when we lived in Sugar Land before moving to Norway. Jessie was home and we were upstairs. I picked her up and ran down the stairs to get into the only interior room we had in the house - a half bath. Our dog Chance would not come. I was screaming like a maniac at him and he could tell something was wrong, but he was no way going in that tiny room. I kept the door open trying to coax him in, afraid glass would shatter any moment and hurt him. I watch the trees in our back yard bend to a 45 degree angle, and chunks of fence swirl around. I have never seen (or heard) anything like what I saw out those windows before or since. When it has passed, there was a boat in the street, power lines down, part of our roof gone and trees all over our front yard.

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I remembered that still - if the sky gets dark and swirly, so does my stomach.

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I remembered calling my mom in the middle of a full blown panic attack because the sound of the rain lashing at our front door reminded me of the sound right before the tornado hit.

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I remember driving into bad weather last year, watched a funnel cloud dip down out of the dark mass of clouds and feeling as if all the blood in my body was heading to parts unknown ... as if I was going into hypovolemic shock.

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I watch Ryan, also, as the sky gets dark - he starts to panic (he was at school under his desk when the tornado went through - Jessie was home sick).

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So ... who are we to judge?