okay, so...

we made it through the hurricane. it's not over yet - the aftermath - but we're blessed to be on this side of that storm. I've been touched reading my friends' accounts of their experiences, and thought I'd add my own.

first off, I was in Dallas working. I ended up cancelling my afternoon/evening recording hours Thursday and Friday to drive back to Houston to ride out the storm with my husband. one might think... you were somewhere safe, and went TOWARD the storm?! yes, yes, because my family is in Houston. the house I own is in Houston. and Houston proper was being told to stay put, prepare, and dig in, not evacuate. so, I hightailed it home. I did think to stop in Centerville and fill up my car with gas... I evacuated during Rita and learned my lesson. not my first time on the hurricane turnip truck. you get gas at every opportunity.

it was a gorgeous day:

and here is the sky when I got home four hours later:




we mostly waited Friday, listening to the wind and watching for signs of a hurricane. we ventured to our neighborhood Kroger and ran into B.Simms, a fantastic, funny older woman from our church, who also lives over in the east end. when we asked if she had boarded up her windows, she wrinkled up her nose and said, 'Naaaawwwww.... been there, done that." very non-plussed, that one. we went back to the house and hung around, watching local tv stations try to outdo each other with amazing, technicolor visual representations of the approaching weather monster. I did dishes. twice. I just didn't want Ike to catch me with dishes in the sink. we checked our prep: flashlights, batteries, lantern, candles, bottled water, various tools, trash bags, plenty of food, a couple of bags and a bucket of ice in the freezer...






and I filled buckets with water just in case we were without and wanted to, oh, flush a toilet or something...




it was fairly peaceful.




we lost power around 11ish. we looked at each other and said, 'okay!'. candles were lit. the wind was pretty strong by that point... I eventually drug our comforter into the dining room, the center and most temperate room of the house, and we all fell asleep on the floor - 2 humans, a dog, and a cat. I was awakened by a loud 'slap!', and as I bolted upright my first thought was "our cars!". not our cars, it turns out. yay! but water was coming into the house on the second floor and dripping down onto our ceiling tiles, and one had gotten heavy enough to drop out of the grid onto the floor. I scrambled to pick up the wet carpet runner and called to M to come help face rainwater in our home, and thus began 3 or 4 hours of dealing with buckets and towels and blankets and pots and pans and flashlights and teamwork and the blessed lantern and shifting, howling winds outside... that were less frightening because of the steady work and troubleshooting we were having to do inside. the place we currently live was built in the 30's I believe, and the winds seemed to dump gross-looking water into every crack and crevice. as we ran around trying to save our space and keep our things from being ruined (nothing was), I kept stopping to sweep and clean here and there... weird how such things make you feel better and more in control. sometime around 7 or 8a, when the weather was dying down a bit, we assured my family in west and central tx that we were alright via text and fell into the bed for a very welcome sleep.

I think we woke up and went back to sleep a couple of times. that's a surreal day in my memory. our backyard looked like this:




we did take the car (with it's rad air-conditioning and phone charger) and go drive around a bit, checking various neighborhoods, M's shop, auntie's house. the trees were definitely the most arresting things to look at. this city has beautiful trees. it made me sad to see how mangled they've become. we went back to the house to endure hands-down the WORST part of the experience... it was stiflingly hot that night, awful, with little wind blowing through the window I asked M to wedge open, and with the house still damp I began to feel like I was coming unglued. it was small comfort to think that I shared such discomfort with over 2 million people. sometime during the night it began to rain, and we decided to just open the back door and let the rainy wind come on in and bring us what relief it would. we lit a couple of citronella pails to deter pests (I'd bought them for our wedding but they never got used... they rule!), laid on the floor in the dining room again, thanked God for a breeze, and slept.

Sunday. I have to say, the morning was sort of fun for me in a 'roughin' it' kind of way. though we never lost water, I was impressed with the cautions of our mayor about boiling water just in case, so I boiled some on the gas stove and made a little candlelit bath for myself in the kitchen sink, washing my hair and everything. then I boiled some more and made oatmeal and coffee with my little drip cup thing. M and I knocked around a bit, playing solitaire and listening to the news via a walkman radio I found and hooked up to some speakers.




we drove over to check out our house on woodfin and the church. the house came through the storm awesomely, I am soooo thankful. our renters take such good care of the property - they'd put up boards on the windows and everything, and had even gotten their power back. the church... well, it was a strange combination of destruction and blessing. wall down, water damage, yet power and air-conditioning and ice, resources to bless and help our family and our neighbors. it was heartening and affecting to see friends working to help our building recover. I have been a member of SWC for... 8, 9 years now? that place, that family, has been a safe and rich harbor for me. my heart said 'amen!' when I read these words written by a friend of ours on his blog: "I dare you to find a group of people who love the Lord and serve him unfailing more than these folks. There are many who are equal, but none who are more." so sweet, JB, and I feel the same. M, B and I went to get food for the hard workers, and we finally made our way back home. we learned that M's parents had gotten power, so we packed a bag, cleaned up our place, threw all wet ceiling tiles in the trash bins outside and all wet towels and blankets in laundry baskets to wash at their house, and took off with the animals. I might have obsessively sprayed everything with Febreeze first.

I have to say... having family to stay with has been such a tremendous blessing. not just for the physical things that are wonderful... air-conditioning, a freezer to store our rescued veggies and meat, tv (somebody needs to restrain wayne dolcefino), a fabulous hot tub. just the support and help, the freedom to lay down and sleep on the couch without that 'I should be doing something' feeling, the shared meals... it all makes such an emotional difference.

No work could be done on Monday, as both studios I was booked at had no power, but we cleaned up our yard and M's parents' yard, and I did manage to finagle 6.5 hours of narration work Tuesday... mind-numbing. a finance course. reading pages and pages of terms and percentages and whatnot... exhausting, but it felt good to work. afterward, I found gas at 59 & Buffalo Speedway -15 minute wait, $30 limit, cash only. score. went by the house to pack another bag and Febreeze everything again... since we got everything that was wet out of the place, it's starting to smell normal again. I'll say it... I'm proud of M and I. We saved our living space... only the ceiling in one of the closets will have to be replaced. I made my way back out to my in-laws, to a wonderful steak dinner and a soak in the hot tub, before getting up at 4a yesterday to drive up here to Dallas to make up the work I skipped out on last week. let it be known - I'm not a morning person, and would not arbitrarily choose such hours. but sometimes it just seems to make the most sense, time-wise. L.B. woke up, too, poured me some coffee, and helped pack my food for the trip. then M got up to say goodbye, too. it was nice, being sent off that way into the dark morning. as I drove and gulped coffee, the sky slowly lit up:




I eventually made it to the studio and got crackin' at 10a, and I left last night at 10p. I worked again today, and will be happy to head home after another 7 hr stretch tomorrow. I'm blessed that other Houston sessions thwarted because of the hurricane were able to be rescheduled for Monday. I don't mean to be work-obsessed, but I own my biz and the husband and I have big dreams, see, so it's easy for me to stress about losing opportunities.

And speaking of the husband, here he is cooking me a lovely hot dog after the storm… the gas stove is a must for hurricanes! Your fancy bourgeois electric contraptions are useless!




some things I haven't said yet:

I'm sad about Galveston. how awful for the people there to lose so much.
we still don't have power.
the storm was humbling.
and a good distraction from the sad news about chino.
I hope our city recovers soon, and I hope the people continue to learn to make innovative lemonade with soggy, powerless lemons.
if I were of a different persuasion, I would totally launch a fence-building business right now.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BEST BROTHER EVER! I LOVE YOU!
that makes it my half-birthday, too.
I'm very, very thankful.