Sometimes a Great Notion

    I could have named today's blog entry "Good-Night Irene" but so many people have used that... I couldn't bear to, despite the fact that it fits perfectly and that I am a fan of Leadbelly's (Huddie Ledbetter's) music. Check out the original by clicking this link: Goodnight Irene.  It's been covered by lots of great people included that great Beach Man himself, Mr. Brian Wilson... but I digress.

  

   So, after all the preparation, how did our little house in suburbia handle the first hurricane since Pretty Boy Floyd came to town in 1999?  Well, for one thing, we did not live in this house back in 1999, but apparently the house didn't do so well back then.  We were very lucky this time around.  The lake overflowed but did not flow into the pool. 

We did get a bit of water into the basement, mostly seeping in from the garage, but thanks to the hard work of putting everything in plastic and up off the floor, nothing was ruined.  We did not lose electricity, clean drinking water, or, God forbid, the Internet.

While I was standing on my front steps, I did see a tree fall right before my eyes.  Its roots must have been so soaked that they just up and dislodged themselves from the ground and it cracked and fell with a soft thud right in the front yard.  

Now, far be it from me to make any kind of sexist remark, but about 25 seconds after that tree was down, there were at least 4 grown men standing around it salivating and bragging about their chainsaws.  After about three hours of good honest work that had us feeling like a small time, East Coast version of the Stampers, we called it a day... leaving the tree looking more like this...

I say "we" because I did my part, dragging branches to the street, piling wood into nice neat stacks, and of course taking pictures.  By 5:30, muddy, scraped up and hungry, I came in, and besides it was cocktail time. 

After checking in with family and friends...and reading peoples' updates on Facebook and Twitter, I knew we fared well this time around.