Surviving the Storm

Why does being inside for 48 hours completely drain me? I feel lethargic and completely lazy. Doing nothing makes me want to do nothing.

As you've already heard, we survived Hurricane Irene. Unfortunately, she arrived on Saturday, and ruined a perfectly good weekend. No work was missed, but our church services were canceled Sunday morning.

The roughest part, the part that was felt across the city, was the fact that there was no public transportation running from Saturday at noon until 6:00AM Monday morning. So, even on Saturday morning, when we were sure that this thing was over for the most part, I couldn't go anywhere even if I wanted to. And if I did actually walk, or bike somewhere, nothing was open... because (again) subways and buses were not running. Ritz Diner, the 24 hour restaurant across the street from our apartment never closed. I think it was the only place open for blocks.

Gifted with all this time, I pretty much did a whole lotta nothing, but this is how I did fill the hours:

1. Saturday morning I washed three loads of laundry in our buildings new laundry facility. It uses these fancy cards (instead of quarters) that you can reload at a machine in the laundry room. Evidently, I wasn't the only one with this idea, but it wasn't too crowded. Plus, I had nothing but time.

2. I washed an entire dishwasher full of dishes. (Okay the dishwasher did the washing.) But, I had to to the drying and the putting away. The "dry" function on this brand new dishwasher seems to be, mediocre at best. Nothing is really ever all that dry.

3. I made a tomato/ basil salad with olive oil and vinegar. I made squash and zucchini and onion. I made a cake. I "cooked" a peach which I sprinkled with cinnamon and ate with a dollop of Fage. I made omelets and grill cheese sandwiches and Vienna sausages. (Here's the deal, what's a hurricane without Vienna sausages?)

I was one of the crazies in the supermarket on Friday evening. I didn't buy all that much, just a few cans of soup, canned peaches, a gallon of water (which was nearly impossible to find) nuts, crackers and yes, by request from Chris- Vienna sausages. I opted for sardines and tuna myself.

4. I read some Anne Lamotte- Traveling Mercies, I started Beth Moore's So Long Insecurity, I journaled. I watched several episodes of Scrubs and entertained a house guest for twenty-four hours. (She lives alone and wanted to "hunker down" at our place.) I napped and went out for a couple walks and went to the East River Promenade just to see how high the river was. It was rushing along, moving swiftly toward the Atlantic.

...

I felt supported and loved and prayed for. I got texts and emails and phone calls from Texas from people just checking on us and touching base. I'm thankful that we never lost power, we didn't experience any flooding and nothing was damaged or harmed. The howling winds and tree branches beating on our windows kept me awake until at 2:00AM. And after that I was up most every hour. But we were safe.

Now I can add earthquake and hurricane to my list of natural disasters.