Calm before the storm…

Well, another storm is coming.  Funny how the 100 year floods are turning into the annual floods.  I’m here in targeted NJ, and yes, I track the storm path every three hours when they update.  I stopped at Walgreen’s yesterday on my way into NYC and ran into a friend from across town who lives in the flood zone.  She just finished restoring her house and moving back in from last year’s decimating flooding.  She was of course shell shocked and just a little stressed.  This is not an area that has frequent violent storms, and isn’t built to support them.  We have many rivers and streams.  We have too many gorgeous tall trees, still full of leaves, and too many buildings too close together.  The trees don’t bend and sway like palm trees in the tropics.  They crack in half and rip down power lines.  We spent a few thousand dollars the past two years having some very large and potentially dangerous trees removed, I’m so glad we did.  But that won’t help if other trees in the area pull down power lines and we are without power for a week or more.  This could get ugly…

That said, know that we live in a very sturdy house, built more than a hundred years ago, when a 2 x 4 was still a 2 x 4.  And we are not in the flood zone, though in a perfect storm, the water can come careening off the mountain and right into our basement.  My son, the bottom dweller has already begun clearing his room of 22 year old male debris.  The Comic Strip Zits in the Sunday paper  (10/28 it comes here on Saturday) was pretty hilarious and very timely…  And of course he is prepared to be mobilized if and when they call up the National Guard in NJ.

And I have a myriad of things I can do creatively in my studio, actually most things except the sewing machine and iron, that do not require electricity.  I have oil lamps and lots to keep me busy. Looms and knitting needles do not require electricity, neither do books.  We have city water and sewer, a wood stove and natural gas in the house.  And a grill.   I’ve sent out my proposals for the ASG conference next year, in Virginia, which were due next weekend, but I didn’t want to take the chance of waiting.  We’ve battened down the hatches so to speak, done what we can with the gardens and deck furniture.  The rest is a wait and see and try to figure out how to get dogs to pee and do their thing in the middle of a hurricane that lasts for two days.  And I am very very grateful that this storm, my dear husband is home for, not somewhere in Saudi Arabia like last year…

Many of you have been through worse, and we are all in this together.  Stay safe dear readers, especially those in the path of Sandy.  I’ll let you know how we fare later on in the week…