Hurricane Irene coming up the East Coast
FYI: Don’t wait until the last minute to buy back-to-school supplies because A.) it might coincide with having to buy groceries and B.) it might also coincide with having to buy hurricane supplies and C.) it might also coincide with having to fill gas tanks in two cars completely full in preparation of impending hurricane and D.) remembering that one of your three kids still needs some back-to-school clothes. If you allow your spouse to wait for the back-to-school supplies, it would have been bad enough with just the groceries on top of it. But it puts him into absolute stunned shell shock when you bundle up all five things together. Suddenly, the family eats too much damn it! We wear too many clothes! We use too many pencils! We need to recycle backpacks and socks better! Because you know, kids don’t outgrow clothes. Clothes and backpacks don’t ever, ever wear out and become unusable. Pencils never wear down. Food isn’t useful in the least. 
Damn it Irene! The whole thing reeks. We’re in Connecticut so it’s not like we’re going to get pummeled the way North Carolina just did, or any of the East Coast islands. We’re also inland Connecticut and in the region where it’s “tropical storm watch/warning” rather than “hurricane watch/warning.” By this point Hurricane Irene has downgraded to category 1, but we’re still expecting heavy damaging winds and heavy flooding rain, and the risk of losing power for anywhere from a day to a week is high.
It’s almost 10:00 PM EST here, and that’s around when we were expected (as of this morning) to start getting heavier rains and the wind would start to pick up. Around 2:00 AM it’s supposed to start getting really bad lasting at its worst until 2:00 PM tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon. Lots of time to lose power. We’re prepped with water and food, including shelf-stable food. We have a gas stove, which I’m hoping will work without power. It usually needs electricity to light the flame. We have flashlights that you can plug into the walls as night lights until they’re needed as flashlights.
My sissy fear? That I’ll have to sleep in the dark and without my fan. I can’t sleep without the sound of the fan. And if I sleep in pitch black darkness, it triggers migraines. I’ll deal, obviously, but…. wahhh! I’ll be brave for my kids. I’ll puff up my chest and make it an adventure. ::walks around using Doctor Who for inspiration::
And WTF is that little fruit fly on my screen? Seriously, we had a garbage disposal problem earlier in the week that The Mister fixed but since then we’ve had a fruit fly problem. Gracie is freaked out by many bugs (yet thinks slugs are cute little shell-less snails) including fruit flies. She refused to use the toilet for the better part of two days because the fruit flies decided they liked the downstairs bathroom just off the kitchen. I’ve been cleaning like mad, vacuuming like crazy, and they’re still around. Yesterday I finally took the Steam Shark and steamed the crap out of every corner of my kitchen, including the garbage disposal, every corner of my bathroom, the stove, the oven, the microwave, everywhere. This morning? The Mister informed me that they’re in the upstairs bathroom. No where else, just the upstairs bathroom. Wh-huh? And now the living room dive bombing my screen.
Sorry, tangent.
The Doctor and Amelia Pond
Ooh, but I was saying Doctor Who! Tonight is the new mid-season episode starter! I can’t wait! I don’t even care that I revealed another layer of inner geekdom! Love love love Doctor Who and I love that I have BBC America.
What was this post about? Oh yes, shell shock about waiting to make several large purchases all at the same time. Don’t do it. Space it out. Because chances are high that you’re going to have to pay the mortgage later that week, a car payment, the car insurance, utilities, and a medical bill that you forgot you had. In the end, you can’t buy that Ben ‘n’ Jerry’s ice cream that’s on sale for half price because it’s just $2.37 too much to add to the grocery bill. And that’s a sad, sad thing for Mommy.
