Frankenstorm: Monday Night

No doubt about it, Monday evening was scary.  We stayed away from the windows as best we could as little foot-long branches intermittently slammed against the windows, especially the back patio door plate glass, so we eventually closed the curtains to offer what flimsy resistance to any broken glass they could; nothing broke.  The wind would howl and shake the house sometimes so loudly that you couldn't hear yourself think.  And the lights would flicker.  What trees we did look at shook and bent in contortions you would have thought impossible.  But there was hardly any rain, with our gauge measuring less than an inch for the entire storm.

For the whole day as we waited for the storm to kick up, we used power like we would never see it again, knowing any second it could blink out, for a long time--running the dishwasher and washing machine trying to stay ahead and prevent a backlog in case we did lose power, playing the radio loud enough not to hear the wind sometimes, having all the lights on for a sense of security.  The kids actually wanted the power to go out, especially because Mama gave them night vision goggles to play with.  So we eventually just turned off the lights.  I was still glad of hot meals and hot water.  I think I had 10 cups of tea that evening, as if each one could be my last.  I found them very comforting and reassuring.  I also made hot chocolate to use up the milk and we ate a lot of perishables out of the fridge--eggs in scramble and in pancakes, chickenless nuggets, soymilk and frozen fruit in smoothies, homemade chicken soup staying warm in the crockpot, roasted chickpeas from a batch I'd cooked earlier in the week, pinto beans turned into chili to save if the power went out, bangers and peirogi for dinner.  It was one of the oddest eating days I've ever had (which is why we went to the store today).

We were shocked to see people out in what I would've called the height of the storm.  A couple was walking their dog.  Neighbor Boy was outside with his dad, both of them being pushed backwards by the wind.  People drove around in their cars despite the threat of falling trees and powerlines.

Occasionally the phone would ring as Gommie and Pop checked in or Goo called with updates from NYC.  It was an odd connection with the outside world during relative isolation.  Though, we were both checking our phones throughout.  I found comfort in hearing from others via FB and email.

Early on we decided that we'd sleep on the ground floor, but not the basement, to be safer from falling trees. Our 75' silver maple is well within striking range of our house.  And the tree guy hadn't been able to come out to cable it before the storm; he had said it was a strong, healthy tree but cabling would just make it more secure.  I worried about that tree the whole time, especially about it falling on the neighbor's house.  So when I saw their flashlights in the darkness of their yard, I actually went out into the wind and yelled to them to see if they were okay.  They were; nothing had hit the house, but it wasn't until morning that I realized it was another neighbor's tree and not part of our own.  Ours only lost small branches.  We were so lucky.  Everyone we know was.

At some point, at the height of the wind and noise, the kids became scared and overwhelmed.  We let them each gather a bag of things from their room to keep with them, as reassurance, but they were upset, even though we tried to explain everything we'd done to make us as safe as possible and told them that the storm was probably half over.   So I turned the radio on as loud as we could bear and we danced to Katy Perry's "Firework."  I'd never heard the line, "after the hurricane comes the rainbow," before, but it was oddly apropos.  We also danced to "Friday" and other perky songs covered on "Glee."  Then,as I mentioned earlier, Mama produced a surprise from her "magic trunk" that she'd been saving for a year:  kids' night vision goggles (from Spynet).  The kids were thrilled and ran around the artificially darkened house spying things they couldn't see otherwise.  It made the dark less scary.  Then we turned the lights back on.  They were mostly okay after that, their confidence and bravery restored.

The cats, however, fretted about most of the day and night, jumping up into places, like the top of the kitchen cabinets, that they'd never ventured before.  Treats and cat grass and cat nip didn't help.  Albus especially kept meowing, I'm sure he was trying to warn us about the storm.  They've pretty much been asleep, exhausted, since late Monday night!

After a hot dinner, we finally settled down in our spots, forgoing baths and even brushing.  By then, the wind had changed direction and was less thunderous but still strong. The enclosed porch on our south side protects the house and so things didn't rattle as hard.  We all read and then turned out the lights.  It took a long time for them to fall asleep.  Mama and I read the paper and talked to family but eventually went to bed ourselves.  Sometime in the night I became aware that the deafening gusts had stopped.

And we still had power!