Power

Lights are already flickering. I had expected us to have power until around midnight, but things might go out sooner.

Just FYI. I still want to take a nap. Gotta turn the a/c down first, though. Get things nice and cold in here for after.

Bayou Surge Update

After her last post, your intrepid hurricane blogger went to the bayou to take a look. This is what she found:














This is considerably higher than earlier in the day when from the spot where this picture was taken, the water was so low as to be barely visible. There has been no rain yet in Houston. The rise in water is all due to surge fifty miles away in Galveston. The storm isn't scheduled to make landfall for several hours yet.

Luckily there is a bit more of a rise from behind the spot where the above picture was taken, and then your hurricane blogger's house is another half mile from there up a street with a slight upward slope. The lot is on a small rise and the house itself is an additional couple feet off the ground, as shown below. For non-Southerners, the little "windows" at ground level are a crawl space beneath the house. The floor is above the crawl space.














Hopefully all will be well. The local news has done another report about bayou flooding, suggesting that the problem will be around the ship channel, not in the areas that wind through the city. All reports from the hype-it-to-death local media and the dry, facts-only online sources have indicated that this area is safe. Neighbors who have lived here thirty years and longer concur.

Cadbury just did a full-body flop by the bookcase. This shall be interpreted for the time being as an indication that there is nothing to worry about and that it's time for a little nap since this promises to be a long night.

Storm Surge Update

They just said on TV that Brays Bayou "below" I-45 could flood from the surge. That didn't make geographical sense so I got online at NOAA where I read the same dispatch.

Below.

Okay. If they mean "due South," then my neighborhood and the entire southern part of the Inner Loop is at risk, so why don't they order us out? If they mean just the wedge of bayou that connects to Buffalo Bayou, the Ship Channel and the Turning Basin, that's East, folks. I've got a map that proves it. Got several, as a matter of fact.

It would make perfect sense for the part of the bayou that ties into the Ship Channel to be susceptible to surge. But where we are is several miles away and as noted previously, they've done a lot of work on the bayou in the past year. It should be okay, I would think.

So what does "below" mean? Think of a cross with I-45 as the up and down part. Brays Bayou is the part that goes across. There is no "below" I-45 on Brays unless they no longer teach maps the way I was taught in school, where "up" means north and "down" means south.

Below.

If I end up having to hack through my roof with an axe at 5 am, I'm gonna be pissed. Especially since I don't have an axe.

General Info for the Viewer at Home

Here are some information sources. My ability to give updates after a power outage will be limited.

Local alarmist fishwrap. Anything by Eric Berger the "Sci Guy" is pretty good. You'll get lots of local pictures, too: Houston Chronicle

Weather Underground tropical updates: Weather Underground

NOAA. Technical, but good. NOAA

If you have DirecTV, you can watch one of the local Houston TV stations on channel 361. It's typical alarmist news, but you can also watch the waves breaking over the Galveston seawall, which is fascinating and disturbing at the same time.

And you can check the weather forecast site of your choice to see conditions in my area. I'm in Zip Code 77004.

As a point of reference for news reports, I'm north of Hobby Airport and south of Downtown. Our neighborhood is on Bray's Bayou, which had a lot of work done on it in the last year. I just hope the engineers knew what the heck they were doing. This neighborhood didn't flood in Allison, which was a 500-year flood event, so we should be just fine even if we get more rain than forecasted.

Wind is picking up now and I'm going to bring in the last of the laundry. I also need to think of something to do with the remaining eggs in the fridge. I'll boil the very last ones this evening, since boiled eggs stay okay for awhile. But I wish I could think of another baking project. More cookies, maybe? As soon as I see the crews come through to restore power and cable, I'll want bribes to show how grateful I am for their service. Hm. Perhaps it will be cookies.

Cadbury, WeatherBun

How do I adjust this computer chair so I read the updates at Weather Underground?
















Okay, I'll trust the humans to know what they're doing on this one. Just keep my hay dry, all right?

Pre-Gaming

When I got up at 8:00 this morning Dan was watching the news, where they were showing the storm surge geysering over the Galveston seawall. The island was already flooding and even the non-alarmists on Weather Underground are saying that the 17-foot seawall will likely be topped and the island inundated.

It was disconcerting to see on video the familiar places flooding already and the spray over the seawall where I just was in June for that conference. The coastal community of Surfside is flooded too, with no roads visible, only the houses. The houses are on eight-foot stilts which won’t help with a 15-20 foot storm surge.

Many years ago my friend Kenny and his boyfriend rented a ginormous house in Surfside for the weekend, right on the beach. Kenny told me to come join them since they had invited a lot of people, bought huge amounts of food and alcohol and it was going to be one big party. I went and it wasn’t nearly the decadent, boozy sort of thing it probably sounds like. It was a cold cloudy weekend in April and we mostly stayed indoors watching movies. I walked on the beach a little. I sipped Bailey’s and scanned the dusky horizon through a brass telescope in an upstairs room. I found a blue shell among the beach grass near the deck where Kenny's friends grilled shrimp under tiki torches. In sum, it was a peaceful interlude in the chaos that was my 20s and I remember it fondly. The house, if it was still standing before this weekend, will likely be gone or irreparably damaged by Sunday.

That’s how things go on the coast.

We’re fine here. Dan and I gathered all our emergency equipment into one place this morning and then I went for a run on campus. There were still students there—dorm residents who had no place to go to. I could smell food cooking at one of the dorm cafeterias, so the students will be fine. Those dorms are built like bomb shelters. They look like them too, but that’s a topic for another time.

What I didn’t see on campus was squirrels. Yesterday I saw only one. I saw a few birds today, but only the hardy grackles who aren’t scared of anything. No mockingbirds, doves, sparrows, or any other kinds. I also didn’t see any feral cats. There are two that hang around the building where I work and they weren’t there yesterday. The animals know when something is up.

Right now it’s overcast and breezy out, but very pleasant. People are walking around the neighborhood visiting each other, letting their kids ride their bikes on the empty streets and doing last-minute pickup of stuff in their yards. A few people have boarded up but most have not. We have double-paned storm windows on our house and were advised by people who were here during Alicia that this should be sufficient.

What we’re getting is basically a Cat 2 hurricane in terms of wind and rain, with a Cat 5 surge. Since we’re 50 miles inland, the surge isn’t a concern. And my only worry regarding the wind is that I'd rather not be without power for very long. A few days of cooler weather are following the storm, so that will help, but it would still be no picnic.

Nothing to do but wait and see, though. We have lots of places we can go in the Austin and Dallas areas if we need to leave after the storm.

I’m doing laundry now and putting water into sports bottles and freezer bags to make ice that I’ll transfer to the fridge and to coolers if I need to. I did a lot of baking last night, although we've got plenty of camp food, too. I don't expect us to have any sanitation issues with the local water supply but we've got lots of bottled water as well as filters and tablets if we need them. I have glass bottles for pasteurizing water in the sun. Once the wind starts picking up this evening I’ll turn the a/c down as low as we can stand it to build up a nice cushion of cold. Then we’ll settle in and wait.

More later, as time permits. The worst part about all this is that the period when I'm likely to have the most time on my hands for blogging is when we'll be without power. Life is funny that way.

Hurricane Update

Not much to report as of tonight. The storm has not intensified, which is good. Predicted wind speeds in my area might not even merit moving the cars to a safer place than our carport. There's still an excellent chance that the storm will make the traditional last-minute bob to the east and it won't be much of an inland event at all.

That would suit me fine.

By all accounts, though, this will be a major coastal surge event and tonight I'm wishing the best for those in the surge areas, hoping they, their loved ones, and their most irreplaceable belongings get safely north in the next 12-24 hours.

More sometime on Friday.

Hurricane Thoughts and Memories

As noted in a previous post, Dan and I decided to do our weekly grocery shopping on Wednesday, using the rationale that the weather will be bad Friday night and the roads could fill up with evacuees on Thursday. Since it was also Dan’s run night, I went with him and enjoyed an evening run at Memorial Park.

One of the interesting things about the last couple of days before a hurricane is the way people react. On the local newspaper’s online chats, every neuron-impaired fool in south Texas is freaking out, wanting to know if they should cancel their coastal duck hunting trip this weekend (might be a good idea, genius) to whether they should evacuate from exurban neighborhoods far to the north or even from as far away as San Antonio. I don’t know where these people come from, but they scare me.

Runners are a different bunch, though. As I made the loop at the park I heard snippets of conversation and it seemed everyone was talking about the hurricane, but with no particular sense of panic. These were people who were confident in their ability to correctly prepare and carry out a rational plan.

While I was running, I thought about Hurricane Alicia. I was sixteen, the school year had barely started, and I wasn’t much involved with my family’s preparations. Oddly, I have little memory of the actual storm, perhaps because not a whole lot really happens in a hurricane. You mostly sit in the dark and wait for it to be over.

I remember how dark the house was after my father nailed up the plywood. I remember the inconvenience of carrying a flashlight everywhere after the lights went out, and I remember how the house became warm and stuffy, although I have no recollection of it ever being particularly bad. It was just a nuisance. The noise affected me more than anything else. The wind howled for hours and sometimes we heard things crash against the house. Making things worse, my father neglected to remove the dryer vent and the wind made it moan and rattle like a caged animal for the duration of the storm. It was worse than the wind because it sounded like something snarling right outside the door, trying to get in.

At one point my father called me to the sliding glass patio door—the only glass he hadn’t had plywood to cover. As if it were yesterday, I can hear my father call my name. Then softly, he said, “Come here.” He pressed the flat of his palm against the door. I followed suit and scared myself half to death. The wind was bowing in the glass, making it bend in and out with every gust as if it were breathing. It wasn’t in danger of shattering—my father knows his stuff in that regard. But it sure felt dangerous to me, and I stayed away from the door after that.

During the silence of the eye, we all went outside for a few minutes. I looked around, thinking I would see a deceptive calm and blue skies like the books said to expect. Instead, it was cloudy with dark, ominous clouds moving in rapidly. I was glad to get back inside.

Later my father fired up the camp stove and made pancakes. And when the storm cleared, I lay on my parents’ bed for a long time chatting on the phone with my friends. Some never lost power, but most did for awhile like we did. We weren’t without power for long. Perhaps a day at most. I had teachers who didn’t get their electricity restored for weeks, though.

If we do get a hurricane this weekend, I hope the city’s repair crews are quicker than they were twenty-five years ago. September is still summer on the Gulf Coast and it's miserable without air conditioning.

Latest Developments on Ike

The prognosis on Hurricane Ike hitting our area remains unclear. In the latest model runs as of tonight, some models have Galveston getting a direct hit, some show Corpus Christi farther down the cost. The local fishwrap is speculating Freeport, which is just far enough south and west to put us on the “dirty” side of the storm with some very nasty weather.

Dan and I went ahead and did our grocery shopping tonight since it will be raining Friday and evacuations may be in full swing by Thursday night for areas that are most at risk. Already some areas within an hour’s drive of me have been given their evacuation orders. We’re not in an evacuation zone, though, even in a worst-case scenario. The overwhelming likelihood is that we’ll stay here.

If the university is going to close, we’ll know sometime tomorrow. If we get the brunt of this storm I’ll need some time to prep. I’m pretty sure I don’t need to buy anything else, but I do need to gather and organize everything so all my stuff will be right where I need it.

I’ll be testing different ways to update my blog, should we lose power over the weekend. I figure if I prepare for ever imaginable contingency, nothing will end up happening except a light, refreshing rain shower.

A Visitor for Cadbury

Cadbury had a visit from an admirer today! Our friend/neighbor Wesley dropped by to talk shop with Dan about university techie stuff and since he and his wife have a bunny, he asked to meet Cadbury.

Cadbury was thrilled to have a new fan. He ran around the room, sniffed Wesley's shoes and finally settled in for some good ear and nose rubs. Talk about a happy bun!

In other news, it's beginning to look like we may be in the clear with regard to Hurricane Ike. We'll know more within the next twenty-four hours.














Cadbury is not at all worried, as you can see here. He gets every day off, so whether the storm comes on a weekend or weekday is immaterial to him. Lucky guy.

Monday Bunday: Bad Reputation

All this talk about mouse cord chewing and bad decorating skills is giving me a bad reputation. It needs to stop. Now.

Sunday Wrap-up and Recipe Share

This has been a particularly productive weekend for me.

My Saturday run was very nice—we’ve had some cooler (by our standards) weather lately and for the first time since May, I ended a long run without being thoroughly soaked. Although it’s true that I learned to run in a Houston summer and can gauge my effort by how much sweat I wring out of my clothes, that doesn’t mean I don’t greet cooler weather with joy. But September is still summer for all intents and purposes, so the weather should be up to its old tricks by next weekend if Hurricane Ike doesn’t come here.

I have some new art project ideas so I went to Michael’s today to stock up on craft supplies. Although I wasn’t surprised by how high my total came to, it is interesting how quickly all those $3 and $4 items add up. It doesn’t help that I’m more likely to buy too much than too little, for fear I’ll get halfway into something and realize I don’t have what I need to continue. I’d rather spend $20 I didn’t need to than spend an hour or more of my time going back for that one thing I didn’t get. Sadly, there is every likelihood I’ll have to go back anyway since I'm new at this particular type of project and don't know what to anticipate, but that’s just how things go.

I’ll have more to say about my art project as time goes on. There might be a giveaway involved, if all goes well. For now, I'm still experimenting.

I tried a new recipe today and it’s a good one. Check out these Black-Eyed Pea Cakes. When I made them as directed I found them too wet to work into patties so I added extra breadcrumbs and some of Bag Lady’s dehydrated spinach. My next misadventure was trying to fry them, per the instructions. In spite of generous amounts of olive oil, they stuck to the pan, so I ended up baking these about 15 minutes at 450 degrees. Putting them on the broiler would’ve worked, too. I skipped the adobo sauce and instead I topped them with chipotle cheddar. The result was so delicious that Dan insisted on trying one, then ate the whole thing even though he had just finished a big lunch. He ate another one tonight and is pestering me for more. It looks like I’ll have no choice but to make more if I want to enjoy any myself!

I also made oatmeal cookies, Persian spiced rice and curry zucchini and broccoli. I have some leftovers from other meals in the fridge, so this ought to get me through the week and if not, it only takes five minutes to make a batch of couscous.

I have two new short stories up this weekend. Ordinary Miracles is part of the Will and Diana series, and The Beauty Queen is a Steal Tomorrow Extra. Check them out if you’ve got time.

And in bunny news, Cadbury did his first out-of-cage flop tonight under my chair by my feet. I wasn’t able to get a picture of it, so this picture of him under the computer chair will have to do.














I know he looks sweet but he's now in the corner trying to relocate the litterbox and chew fringe onto the sides. I have serious misgivings about his decorating ideas but there's no stopping him once he has a notion.

Have a good week, everyone!

Perp

This is the face of a mouse-killer. Computer mouse, that is. Present tally: 2. That's a better mouse record than my cat.

The mask is a futile attempt to hide his identity. The overall cuteness is a silent plea for leniency. Or maybe just a reminder that I need to make some modifications around here so he can't go jumping onto my computer and my desk. I sometimes wonder if he's part billy goat.

He's definitely an insomniac. I sleep with earplugs, but Dan reports that all night long he hears Cadbury drinking from his water bottle, ringing the bell on his cage, jumping in and out of his litter box and chewing on things. I think Dan should get over it and get earplugs.

Nevertheless, I'm beginning to think Cadbury would be perfect for the job of real mouse-catcher. You see, the other night I caught Dan sneaking around the house at 2:00 am wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and carrying a broom. At his heels was the cat in a clearly subsidiary role. I asked what the heck was going on and Dan informed me that he thought he heard a mouse. I, of course, heard nothing. Gotta love earplugs.

If we do have a mouse, I think we should put Cadbury on the job. And in the meantime, I guess it's a good thing we have a computer store on campus because I'm in need of a mouse of the computer variety.

Monday Bunday: Standing Tall

Sorry for the late Monday Bunday post.

Cadbury loves to stand on his hind legs, but it's a hard pose to get a picture of him in.

Sunday Recipe Share

Since it's a long weekend, I didn't feel the same sense of urgency to get all the week's cooking done today. And a good thing, because I had a few obstacles thrown in my path.

For starters, I was working on a story this morning when Dan decided to go for a run. This was the first time in more than a year and he couldn't find his shoes. Or his running shirts. Or his old mp3 player with his running songs queued up on it. No matter how much one might want to say, "Hey, buddy, that's YOUR problem," the fact remains that it's damn difficult to immerse oneself in a fictional world with someone coming in and out of the room, digging through things, asking questions and muttering sour nothings under his breath.

Around noon, I gave up and left to run errands. I was already an hour behind schedule and had to make a separate stop to pick up my asthma meds, since my annual deductible kicks in on Monday. Still, it all would've worked out okay if I hadn't come out of Central Market at 12:45 and found my car wouldn't start. AAA got there in pretty good time, but it was still 1:30 before I got home and could start cooking.

And by the time I got done with my cooking for the day, it was just too late in the afternoon to do a bike workout. I was hungry and it was nap time, so I'll just have to try to work that into my schedule for tomorrow.

But I did try some new recipes today, and here they are:

Peanut Butter Cookies: In the comments associated with this recipe, everyone suggested adding more flour, so I (rebel that I am) added 1/4 cup of quick oats and some pecan meal to the cookie dough. I also added about 1/4 cup of maple syrup and some cinnamon. Be sure to take the cookies out sooner rather than later if you like them soft. These are totally decadent and delicious, and I have a feeling I'll be asked to make them again!

Persian Spiced Rice with Potato Crust: I had this for dinner, hot out of the oven. It's quite a treat! I don't have a 1-quart casserole dish, so I used my 2-quart dish and doubled the recipe. If you do the same, bear in mind that you need to increase the cooking time. I used red potatoes instead of new potatoes, since that was what I had on hand. Yukon golds would've been good, too. I used yogurt instead of sour cream, and I didn't have saffron. Oh well. I threw in some curry and coriander and ended up with something probably more Indian than Persian, but hey, it's all good.

I also made Apricot Bread again, but I haven't tried it yet so I can't say how my new recipe adjustments worked out. Faithful blog readers may remember that I thought it was a little dry and not sweet enough last time. This time I added some apricot preserves and maple syrup, so we'll see how that worked out.

And that's it on recipes today. My day wasn't nearly as productive as I would've liked it to be, but that's just how it goes sometimes. At least I don't have to go to work tomorrow, so I can try again!

(Note: The car issue was a loose battery post. I gave someone a jump at the park yesterday morning after my run and he said I had a loose battery post, but I was brain-dead and didn't really get what he was saying until I was outside Central Market today with a car that wouldn't crank. Never try to tell something to a tired runner. It does no good.)

Saturday Notes

No, we're not throwing the bunny away! It just seems there's nothing he's not curious about. He got in my lap last night while I was on the computer, stuck his face in the sleeve of my bathrobe and just sat there like that for fifteen minutes while I rubbed his ears. Little weirdo. I guess he's never heard about oxygen. Note to self: add science lessons to the reading lessons.

In other news, the hurricane tracking models have settled down and it looks good for us, bad for New Orleans. Although actual site of landfall is still uncertain, you might as well have the checkbook handy. Or just send your Red Cross donation now and beat the rush.

This morning’s run wasn’t what it could’ve been. My hamstrings were tight and I wasn’t disappointed when preparations for a music festival along the Buffalo Bayou trails required me to turn back and cut my run short by about a mile. Since we’ve got a long weekend, I might see if I can get an appointment with my massage therapist. It’s been a long time and I could stand for her to beat up on me a bit.

There was no post-run ice cream and music today. Damn those people for setting my expectations! I had to go home and eat yogurt instead. Better for me, but not as much fun.

Recent Workouts

Tuesday: 6 mile run
Wednesday: 45 minute spin
Thursday: 30 minute elliptical
Friday: scheduled rest day
Saturday: 19 mile run

Bunny in a Box

Not a lot to report here. Work is busy-- thank goodness Monday is a holiday! We're continuing to watch the storm track for Gustav. We should start to get a good sense of where the hurricane will go after it passes Cuba, which should be sometime Friday. We aren't terribly concerned, though. We're pretty well positioned to handle a hurricane and other than needing some more batteries (I bought a second battery-powered fan this summer) we're about set.

Tonight Cadbury decided to jump into my lap while I was on the computer. I was startled, to say the least! Pretty darn cute, though.

Water

Mid-Week Rambles

This has been a catch-up week at the office. Although the students are back now, I don't work in a student-serving department, so we're not affected much. Instead I'm trying to dig through the backlog that built up over the past two weeks when we put everything on hold in order to get the new fiscal year merit pay verified and loaded.

Dull stuff.

Less dull is the hurricane that might move into the Gulf by the weekend. There's no telling where it will end up at this point, but already some people are freaking out, wondering if they need to evacuate from Katy, Sugarland, and Conroe-- areas that are so far out of the danger zone that even a direct hit with a Cat 5 probably wouldn't be a big problem except for people living in trailers and flood-prone areas. But people need things to freak out over in their dull little 8-to-5 lives and the news media is happy to oblige with exciting graphics and dire predictions.

All I know is I'll be pissed if we get a Labor Day hurricane. I already have Monday off, dammit. If we're going to get a major storm (or serious threat of one), I want it to come with a Get Out of Work Free card. So how about Tuesday or Wednesday, Gustav? If that won't work for you, go someplace else, okay?

Monday Bunday: Cadbury

He looks sweet, but he's contemplating new mischief.