Not a survey in shiny things

Well, I’d started a survey stolen from Marg, since that’s about the only way to get me to make an entry these days, but after going on and on and on for one question, I decided maybe I better just do the actual survey later. And write about my answer to the question “What are you looking forward to most in the next six weeks?”

It’s too bad I didn’t do this when I meant to, a week or so ago, because I actually WAS looking forward to something very much — we were intending to go to Charleston last weekend, which was quite thrilling as we have not taken a trip since last Christmas - which was also the last time we went to Charleston. In July we were going to have a mini-vacation in Virginia when Cousin E’s daughter got married, then Baker B’s mom fell and there went that trip. I went by myself to Harrisonburg for one night so I can’t say I haven’t been anywhere, but that was an awfully short trip. SO we were going to Charleston for three nights, which is the usual extent of our trips, and the usual extent of our locations - Baker B isn’t much of a traveler. Unless it’s to England. And It will be a lot longer than six weeks before that happens again, sadly.

Anyhow, point being, we were planning to leave for Charleston and a fun summer beach vacation last Saturday morning. Friday night I got a notification that the governor had just declared a state of emergency in North Carolina. We were all ?!!?what the fuck?!??! Then looked at the weather. Hurricane Florence was headed right at us. Well, it was still WAY out in the ocean at that point, and not due to make landfall till the following Thursday and we were only staying till Tuesday. If it had been up to me, we’d have gone anyhow and come back Monday if we needed to - two nights would be better than NO NIGHTS- but Baker B is much more, ummm, cautious than I am. And it was forecast to be really really really bad, like Hugo Bad, which was bad enough that it did a ton of damage all the way up here in the mountains. And devastated the coast.

Baker B was vindicated when the NC and SC governors both declared a mandatory evacuation for the coast, including Charleston, which would have meant we’d have been stuck in the evacuation traffic trying to get home. SO, yeah, good thing it wasn’t up to me. But OMG THAT WAS IT NO VACATION FOR US ALL YEAR IT TOTALLY SUCKS I HATE EVERYTHING!!!!!

Yes, I am SUCH a princess. I do realize that. But but but now it will be an entire year before we get a vacation. And by “vacation” I mean a few days at the Red Roof Inn on Mount Pleasant, not a luxury condo on a tropical island for a couple of weeks. Our vacations are definitely low-key and budget. And I also realize I DO get to go to Charleston quite a lot, budget and low-key or not, it’s not everyone who can take off to Charleston two or three times a year. Next year we are going in June or July; every year we wait till late August or September, and then have to reschedule and cancel thanks to the omni - present hurricanes. It’s a lot cheaper in September, but that doesn’t much matter when you end up running out of time. Sniff. Baker B also SWEARS we will stay a week at Christmas, but I will believe that when I experience it.

ANYHOW, the other part of this long sad tale is that now we’re sitting around waiting for this fucking hurricane to reach us. We’re in the northern edge path, which is apparently the really bad part as far as wind/rain. Of course at this point it’s a tropical storm, not a hurricane, and although wind was quite a worry when it was a Category 4, that’s not going to be too serious now. What will be serious is flooding. And for Baker B and I personally, that’s not going to be a problem as far as where we live- our house is on a ridge, nowhere near water, and there are several ways to get into town if the roads do flood. Torrential rains are due to start tonight and last through tomorrow. We’ll get water in the basement- a common occurrence - and it’s possible the power will go out. That to me would be the worst, since we’re on a well and when we lose power we also lose water. But if it does go out, it’s unlikely it will stay out long- we’re close to town and it’s rarely out for more than a couple of hours.

I am just so SICK of Florence, though. This has gone on for a WEEK now. And it HAS been terrible in the eastern part of the state, with an enormous amount of flooding. But it’s like we’ve been on Red Alert for an entire week - the university cancelled classes Thursday and Friday, and have cancelled them for Monday and Tuesday TOO. Supposedly because a lot of students here live in affected areas, but that doesn’t really make sense as everyone in affected areas should be LEAVING the affected areas, not going from here to there. But for a week we’ve had warnings and alerts and all the bread is gone from the grocery store and we’re all on edge because we have to BE READY AND STOCK UP AND PREPARE!!!

It’s like when we get !!!!BLIZZARD WARNINGS!!!!, except when we actually do get hit by blizzardy weather, we really CAN get snowed in for days and lose power and not have heat, and starve and die. As I keep having to remind myself when I want to buy twenty more bottles of water, even if we DO lose power for a few days, we WON’T be unable to leave our house. We can go into town, we can refill water jugs, we can buy more food and alcohol from Publix. We’ll probably be confined to the house tomorrow due to torrential rains, but after that we’ll be free to come and go.

So. We’ve made sure our gutters are hooked up to the drainpipes (they are ALWAYS coming loose), I’ve moved everything on the deck back against the wall so it will be out of whatever wind there is, I bought a bunch of bottled water from Publix, because although I buy bottled water every winter I don’t know how old what I have in the basement is, and keep not going to check. It can be toilet-flushing water if it’s too old to drink. All the battery packs are charged up, and we have beer, wine, peanut butter and cat food. Now I am going to go run the dishwasher so if the power goes out we won’t have nasty dishes in there for ages. I think we are all set for our one day of torrential rain tomorrow.