Stormalooza

October is hitting us with a ferocity that bodes ill for this winter. First of all, I absolutely hate windstorms for many reasons, starting with my parents' roof blowing off in the Columbus Day Storm of 1962. We came home from church, and it was lying in the yard. It shook me to the core and made me very insecure about WIND. Secondly, other bad stuff has happened along the way, like fences blown down, power outages that were truly nasty(worse without my handy husband here!) and the feeling of helplessness as I heard crashes and booms from outside, along with the house shuddering and groaning as the wind blasted into it. Of course, it was easier when Patt was alive; it's difficult to face down Stormaggedon without his calming, and capable presence. I have flashlights, battery operated lanterns and candles, beer, coffee(though how to make it hot is beyond me) and a well-stocked earthquake box. This is when, weakly, I just want someone else to take care of me, and I don't have anyone. pity party  I'm hoping it's not as awful as they are predicting, as sometimes happens in this area. As for our inservice day yesterday, it was terrible in many ways, starting with an idiotic colleague at Sbux making some tactless comments about the number of calories in my mocha and how it would affect my aging body(wanted to kill him!), and culminating in a meeting with the district World Language department where I realized that I truly dislike people who are self-important and arrogant. There are so many signs to retire that I don't know where to start. As a counterbalance, I do love and admire many of my colleagues, and will miss working with them! My students are also very important to me, but honestly, the rest of the job has become a real shitshow. Now, I must gear up for The. Big. Storm by drinking some beer and hanging out with Mari. An exciting life, eh?

Comments

[emma]

Crossing my fingers that the storm won't be severe....

[Mary]

Be safe. We already lost our power today -- it will probably go on long enough to charge cell phones and then off again tomorrow. Stay safe. It's not every day we can say we got hit with a typhoon!

[Zazzy]

There was an article about your storms on Mental Floss today (http://mentalfloss.com/article/87505/another-big-storm-heading-pacific-northwest), but what I found most interesting was a comment.

"...You can feel sorry for us when our earthquake comes, but 60 mph wind and rain (which we are very used to) isn't a storm in my book. I live right in the middle of this "storm." It is a farce did not change my daily routine one bit."

There have been responses that disagree and I certainly hope that the storm is not severe and no one is hurt, but it does remind me of a category 1 tornado that touched down in Gillette, WY, while I lived there. It did a little roof damage to a couple houses and was the big news of the day for a while. Of course, I grew up in tornado alley and this storm was nothing to me. Six foot snow drifts were far more exciting to me but pretty commonplace to the long term residents. It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it?

[Ally Bean]

I don't like those high winds, either. A few years ago we had a tree come down on the edge of our deck after 75 mph winds whipped through here. Not a lot of real damage, but lots of clean up. It's the waiting for the winds [or tornado] to happen that's so difficult. Take care, huh?

[What is an earthquake box?]

[Marie K]

Hopefully it won't be as bad as they think. You're right, that's happened many times before, although it great to be prepared. Beer and coffee should do you!

[notoriously nice™]

27 years after Hurricane Hugo and I still dread the wind which is one of the reasons we fled to Atlanta ahead of Hurricane Matthew. Sorry I'm too far away to help if you need it.

[Kathy]

The coffee thing - if you feel that power outages are going to get more frequent, why not get yourself a little one-burner propane stove? I have one I got at Target, and it's come in handy a few times when the power goes out. About $20. You can boil water on it and use a French press.

[Margaret]

Thanks so much, Mike. Big and potentially damaging storms make me feel so alone. Mari isnt much help! My dad is too old. My brother has his own family, as do my friends. I know people would help me if I asked though!

[Jay]

I am happy to hear you have your earthquake box. Ours should be better stocked than it is, a goal for this year. And we need a stove of some sort too - let me know if you look into those.
I have several friends/coworkers that are spending the nights in their basements, just in case a tree comes down. One of them narrowly missed losing their baby in a big storm here a few years ago. They had taken her out of her crib a few minutes before a tree crashed down, landing on the crib. Luckily it just covered her sister in the same room with branches and insulation.

[Pam]

Hope the storm blew over. It sounds very frightening. (By the look of you, you certainly don't need to worry about calories! (Unlike me.)

[Tonya]

I was very nervous about this storm (since our power was out for 14 hours yesterday during the "mini" storm), but thankfully it wasn't as bad as they predicted. It got a little impressive for a bit, but ultimately no big deal. Lights flickered a few times, but thankfully stayed on (I would have been pissy if they'd gone out AGAIN). I was overall appreciative of having John around, but to be honest, he was quite flaky throughout this! Then, in the midst of the storm, he took off to get gas for a borrowed generator (20 miles away) and didn't even take his phone with him. I've been rather peeved with him these last few days.

[mccgoods]

I have been thinking of you all weekend for more reasons besides the storm but the storm was the biggest reason.
I hope you are doing well and hanging in there.
That was a really awful comment about the calories sometimes people just don't know when to keep their mouth closed.
I guess that is all I have been thinking about you often on a crazy school day saying to myself "I wonder what Margaret would think" but more about that later.
Be GOOD TO YOURSELF
Be KIND TO YOURSELF
Be LOVING TO YOURSELF

[kayak woman]

I want to say that I am happier facing down storms with the GG's presence except when he decides to go OUT in them! But I'm thinking about tornadoes, which are the only truly scary storms that ever happen here and big ones are rare in my city. Snow or ice storms can be devastating but not so much to folks who are safely ensconced at home and don't need to go anywhere. I saw that propane thingy on fb and I would also be worried about blowing myself up!

[Adrasteia]

Dear CHRIST that person at Starbucks was horrible! That's the sort of thing so appalling that you can't even find words to effectively tell them off. I lived in Tornado Alley for three years, so I'm even more suspicious of particular cloud types.