Mother Nature

Is there some way on the facebook page of life to like, de-friend Mother Nature? She's been rather upset lately and is really acting ugly. Just in the past two weeks:



Last week there were at least three big thunderstorms that I can count. One of which was ON. TOP. OF. US. I don't mean it was close, or we got a little rain. I mean on-top-of-us like lightening actually came out of the electrical sockets. I know this because at 5:40 a.m. I was holding a very frightened little girl who would have gone back into the womb if she could have as the lightening and thunder pounded our house at exactly the same time. You know the rule-of-thumb for deciphering how far away a storm is - for every second between lightening and thunder is one mile? Well, there were no seconds. The house was still somewhat dark, and the clocks never flickered, the nightlights never wavered. But it looked like fireworks were coming through the walls. The sudden bursts of blinding white sparks kept spitting out into the darkness from the sockets, like the end of a sparkler on Fourth of July. In my disorientated state, I thought the lightbulbs in the hall fixtures exploded. I thought this for a while actually, as there was no way I could peel Katie off of me to go find out. Later I turned on all the lights, and realized it actually stormed IN the house!! I'll never forget laying there holding her and covering her one ear I could get to, and wondering to myself how much this 104-year-old house can take, then finally realizing there were at least two seconds between lightening and thunder. I whispered in Katie's ear to listen to the thunder, that because it wasn't coming at the same time as the lightening anymore it meant it was moving away.

Maybe it was that same storm that made the front foyer ceiling leak onto the old wooden floors. Water dripped steadily from the seam in the wooden beams in the ceiling, enough to collect a couple of inches in a bucket. But then, it rained in the house again later in the week, so maybe it was every storm that did this. It's all running together in my mind now.

And then there was the day of the earthquake earlier this week. I am pretty sure I'm one of maybe seven people in the Northeast who did NOT feel it. I feel robbed. Really, I do. Dan felt it at his office, and said he knew immediately. Of course he did since that was the SECOND one HE has experienced (several years ago he was in San Francisco for a conference and felt one a little bigger than the 5.9 one we had here). My sister experienced one in Hawaii. Even Jack felt it at summer camp at the Y. He said the picnic table kept shaking. I had left work late, and so was in the car. I heard about it on the radio, and of course, could not get a cell signal if I'd had to. But here is what happened at our house:

It's not the best quality photograph, but you get the picture - ahhh, pardon the pun.

So sometime last weekend, the third storm hits. I was out of Diet Dr. Peppers, which, of course, as you all should know, is tantamount to a national emergency. I went to the closest store to our house: K Mart. Here's what it looked like as I was going in (not yet raining):

Ten minutes later with said Diet Dr. Peppers still sitting in the cart, this is me wading out to save the car from floating away:

That's the best shot I could get, ok? Thank goodness I had on your basic cheap flip flops and shorts. I tried so hard to not think about all the nastiness that on a normal, dry day sits on the parking lot, flies out of truck beds, falls out of garbage bags, gets tossed by lazy, good-for-nothing fools who view all of the out-of-doors as their personal trash can, and just generally ends up on every parking lot in America. I did briefly envision what would happen if I didn't go out to the car, but of course, immediately came to my senses. It was a couple of inches from my knees. Ewwwww is the only appropriate word here.

Here's another shot I managed to get, but still doesn't do justice to how very close it was to coming in the car:

Yes, the water is covering the bottom half of the tire. This is a Toyota Camry...and the water was literally an inch or less from coming in the doors.

Ed Buckner was extremely worried about me apparently, and was quite relieved when I walked in the doors with debris still on my feet and looking a little wet and disheveled.

And now, at 9 p.m. on Saturday, August 27, 2011, Hurricane Irene is approaching. Irene is barreling up the east coast, and Philly is evacuating. The rain started today on our property in the middle of the morning. Around dinnertime, it began falling in heavy sheets, and the trees were swaying at 45 degree angles. Now we have flashlights stationed all over the house, as the lights are flickering already. Buckner has had a flashlight in his pocket since noon, and is keeping up with Irene's progress on the tv. Of course, the local stations have not had regular programming on all day. Yesterday was chaos, traffic was horrific, and every grocery store was packed. In every aisle of the Acme grocery store by my office, I heard more than once cell-phone conversations about "What else do you think we might need?" After two trips to the grocery store, and one trip to Sam's Club, we've got cases and cases of bottled water, multiple industrial-size packages of batteries, and coolers and two freezers full of food and bags of ice. Irene is not a welcome guest - she's already forced her way into the house through the front door which was closed but not locked. However, we have no choice but to see what she brings tonight and tomorrow. I'd like to say, "Goodnight, Irene," but so far it's definitely NOT good.