Sandy

Oh, Sandy.  What damage you have wrecked in New York and New Jersey.  Pennsylvania and Ohio too.  

We are back.  Well, the power is back, at least.  

Monday it rained steadily all day, although nothing unusual.  There was no school, Jeff had no work, so we just kind of sat around and waited for this big storm.  The wind was strong, but again, nothing unusual.  About 5 pm, on Monday night, we watched the weather channel reporters orgasm as Sandy's eye made landfall.  And I shrugged at the kids and commented on how it hadn't been that bad, and I guess we weren't going to lose power.  TV got shut off, and we moved on with our day.

Foolish, foolish me.

An hour or so later, the lights started flickering.  The wind also picked up quite a bit.

By 7, it was time to get the kids ready for bed.  We gave everyone a flashlight on their nightstands.  I tucked Michael in and explained that if he woke up and his clock wasn't on, he could use the flashlight.  He said, "Or I could just turn on my lamp."  Not quite, buddy.  

We had just put Michael to bed and Lily was brushing her teeth.  And everything just shut down.  Lily started shrieking and Michael came quickly out of his room.  We agreed to let them sleep together just to calm them down.  Amazingly, although the wind was howling, they fell right to sleep.  Andrew went to bed soon after and also had no problems.

Shadow was having problems.  She was shaking and panting and I was pretty sure she was going to have a heart attack.  Poor baby.  We moved her cage up into our room so she wouldn't have to be alone.  Jeff and I didn't sleep real well.  The wind was just HOWLING...and the occasional loud cracks made us nervous to be sure.  By 1am, all was quiet.  Really, really quiet. 

At 4 am, Michael and Lily woke up.  I ushered them back to bed, but I could hear all their chit-chatting.  At one point, I heard Michael say, "Lily?  When are Mom and Dad going to put new batteries in the house?"  Makes sense...everything else he deals with gets fixed with new batteries.  Cutie thought we were just delaying putting new batteries in for fun.

Tuesday, we waited for the sun to rise.  That was the worst few hours without power...from when the kids woke up at 5 until the sun rose at 7:30 or so.  Nothing to do.  

Once the sun came up, we played board games, read lots and lots of books, and carved pumpkins.  Jeff had no work, so he was hanging out with us.  We took lots of walks and surveyed the damages in our little neighborhood.  Our gas stove top worked, so we ate grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for lunch.  Our water continued to run as well, so dishes weren't a problem and we had plenty of water to boil and toilets that flushed.  Not too bad, all in all.  A little stir crazy...the worst was just having zero information.  Radio programming sucks.  Lots of traffic and weather, but no real info.  And we tried lots of different AM stations.  Just sitting around not knowing if New Jersey was still there or if the Delaware River had flooded and we stuck for weeks.  Nothing.

We went to bed Tuesday night with no power still, but Jeff had gotten word that he could go back to work on Wednesday.  Our gym regained power late Tuesday night.  So Wednesday, I got up with the kids and we went to the gym.  I watched the news as I ran, and the kids got to watch some cartoons in the kids club. I recharged the Kindle and my phone.  It was heavenly.  Then we went to the library, which had never lost power.  Lily had her 6 year old well visit.  We started to feel normal.  Until we went to go out to lunch after Lily's appointment.  We made the mistake of going back to our town (all the rest of those places are in towns near by).  Nothing had power.  So we went home and had Halloween peanut butter sandwiches.

Recipe:

1 piece of bread spread with peanut butter
+
Halloween candy raided from stash...since trick or treat was cancelled anyway
+
Lots and lots of creativity
=
Super yummy and fun sandwiches

We putzed around for the rest of the afternoon.  Lots of books and board games.  We met Jeff at a restaurant for dinner and again kind of forgot about no power.  Came back to a completely dark neighborhood.  Started getting ready for bed.  At 7:30, I had tucked the littles into bed and Andrew was finishing a logic problem by candlelight.  And, Alleluia!  Power came back on!


So we're fine.  A few points that I am super annoyed with...

1)  Radio.  Seriously, folks.  When there are wide spread power outages, we need more info to be given out by radio.  And don't just refer us to your website for more information (they kept saying things like, for more info go to CBS.com.  Thanks.  Why do you think I'm listening to the radio?  BECAUSE I HAVE NO OTHER SOURCE OF INFORMATION)

2)  We are now living in a society where it is ASSUMED you have a smart phone.  Michael pre-school was apparently communicating solely by e-mail.  Which I couldn't get because I don't have internet if I don't have electricity.  The older kids' school district had automated calls that said, "Due to weather related circumstances, there will be no school.  See our website for more info."  Once I finally got to the website last night, there was all this info about how our particular school had roof damage, and there would be no school until Monday at the earliest.  But if I still had no power, I wouldn't know that.  They just assumed I would be able to pick it up on my phone.  Even if I DID have a smart phone, I might not be getting service.  I have a friend who had no phone service for 24 hours after the storm hit.  It just proves my point that we are WAY too dependent on cell phones.

3)  We are getting our phone service through our cable provider.  But the phone jacks don't work.  So when there is no power, there is no phone service.  Why the heck do we still have a land line, then?

Gripe, gripe, gripe!  It really is good to be back!