Monday Bunday: Gifts Galore

On Saturday, the UPS man brought Cadbury a package, addressed to him and his family. The box appeared to be full of treats:














First, of course, we had to read the note:














Then came the unpacking:














Orchard Grass! Our favorite!














Craisins!
















A fun new toy:














And sticks for chewing:














Pixel got some tasty gifts, too:














And there were even treats for humans:














Best of all, of course, was the fun of the box itself:














Thanks, Glenna, Pink, and Elvis! You’re great pals!

Saturday Update: Good News, Bad News

We have mixed news on the storm repair front. The good news is that the crews are finally at work restoring power to the rest of my neighborhood. The broken pole has been replaced and although I won't know until dark how many of my neighbors got their power on today, at least work is being done and that's great news. Also, the neighbors at the end of our street have power again and our friend's neon kitty is lighting up her window again. Once everyone has lights and we have a few streetlights, things will start to feel more normal and I won't be so nervous coming home from campus after dark.

Yes, after dark. We still have no internet. I had high hopes when I saw the pole repair crews today, since I think our cable outage is somehow tied into the whole no-power, no-lines thing. But Dan saw a Comcast truck today-- the first one we've seen since the storm. They told Dan they were doing an assessment. WTF? Two weeks and lots of phone calls and they're just now assessing? They told they Dan didn't know yet when we'd have service, but they told our next-door neighbor it would be one to two weeks. WTF again? I really wish these clowns would get their stories straight and give us answers we can plan around.

In the meantime, it's hard to live in my usual way, since I'm used to being online a lot, puttering on office projects, emailing friends, looking for new recipes, doing research for my writing, submitting stories, visiting friends' blogs, and reading news. I can do all of those things at the office, obviously, and I'm very fortunate that it's just a short walk away. But it's also not convenient or even safe sometimes, and after awhile it just gets old.

Today was long run day and I stayed home again because I wasn't sure if Memorial Park had lights yet and I've read that the bayous still stink. Running around campus seemed the better option and I did 17.5 miles. I'm still not at my old distances, but the weather was nice and I felt pretty good, so I'm happy.

And finally, Cadbury got another package in the mail! I forgot my jump drive at home and I'm not going to go back and get it tonight, so everyone will have to wait until tomorrow to see what his friends Glenna, Pink, and Elvis sent him! Thanks, friends!

Tuesday Recipe Share

Last night I tried this recipe for Polenta Spinach Pie. It's basically a cornbread crust pizza and I added fresh garlic, didn't use anything remotely like two cups of sauce, and I used both mozarella and parmesan on top. Dan and I were both very pleased with the results. It's easy, quick, tasty, and would probably be delicious with any toppings, if one weren't crazy about spinach.

We still don't have internet service at home and I'm torn on the subject of whether or not to spring for a land line for backup. We wouldn't use it very often and I would only consider it worth the initial expense if Comcast were going to be out for another week or more. But Comcast can't say how long before we have service again. It could be a day, a week, or a month. No one at the customer service level has any clue. It's frustrating.

I'm beginning to suspect that the problem with our cable is related to the fact that most of our neighborhood remains without power. This morning I saw that the street at the far opposite side of the neighborhood has power but they, like we, have back yards that abut university property. Everyone in the middle is dark and other than the tree-cutters, no crews have come to work at restoring service. And in spite of the Houston Chronicle's assertion that not all power restoration requires actual trucks, you've seen the pictures of the smashed pole, broken box and sagging cables. We do, in fact, need trucks. And workers. And equipment. Lots of it.

If our internet is related somehow to the power problem, we could be waiting awhile, since I don't think our neighbors are scheduled for electric service restoration until the weekend, and that's if workers actually show up and start doing something and no additional problems are found.

I'm going to check if my studio gets any wireless bleedover from the university. I doubt it, because I don't think the university's wireless service extends to the back of the parking lot and therefore to my fence, but one never knows and it's worth checking.

In the meantime, it's getting easier to write and do other projects. It was hard at first because I just wasn't in the right frame of mind. It gets easier, though, and I have to keep reminding myself that we've been much luckier than our neighbors and I need to grateful. Time will pass and someday this will all be an amusing memory.

Monday Bunday: The Art of the Nap

Getting sleepy...


















Naptime!

Saturday Update

Still no internet at home, but I tried to make this as close to an ordinary day as possible. I had to do my long run on campus, which meant starting after the sun was up. This made it hard to go as long as I wanted because I ran out of time before I needed to be home getting ready for us to go have lunch. I ended up only doing fourteen miles, but I'll consider that a success for now. Memorial Park was out of the question since it still doesn't have lights, so running circles there posed no benefit over running circles at home. The bayous all stink, so anything involving bayou trails wasn't a good option, either.

We do what we can.

Our Indian restaurant was open today - yay! I had hoped to get some more destructo-pics on my first outing since the storm, but I didn't see as much damage as I expected. Everyone has been very busy cleaning up and the biggest evidence now of last week's storm is the cut trees and piles of branches in front of nearly every inner loop home, and the open windows marking who still doesn't have power.

I wonder what will happen to all that wood? I hope the cut up trees will be shipped north for people challenged by high fuel oil prices this winter. It would be a nice way to bring something good out of the disaster.

We were very lucky to get power restored when we did. As it turns out, we're on the same grid as part of the university and not where I showed the picture a few days ago of the damaged box and lines. The university was considered a priority and the area behind our back fence didn't have trees to damage the lines, so they brought it on much faster than the rest of our neighborhood, which is still dark. For those of us whose back yards abut the university, though, we're up and running.

Except for internet. I know I shouldn't complain when so many still don't even have lights but if Comcast could just give us a real estimate, that would be a big help. Instead we get canned answers about "crews working in your area." Right. Haven't seen a single one. Given that Comcast's call center is probably in India, I'm sure it's a reasonable answer to them, but Houston metro area is the size of a small country! "In your area" could mean anything.

But I have the university and for that I'm grateful. I have to be careful coming and going after dark, but I carry nothing of value with me and so far the only danger I've encountered is nearly being run down by some dorm rats playing a game that looked like a version of flag football where a stolen pylon was being used in place of a ball. I could've sworn I was safely out of bounds, but I was a dorm rat once myself and I can vouch for the fact that these late-night games have very flexible rules, all of them made up on the fly.

And speaking of being out after dark, it's after 9:00 and I need to think about wrapping things up here and going home. I have some "lessons learned" posts I'm working on and that I will copy and paste over the coming week, so be prepared for some prep lists and recommendations.

Eggs and Internet

It seems amazing that a week has already gone by since I woke up to find Dan parked in front of the TV watching the storm surge crashing over the Galveston seawall. Even though we were without power until Wednesday afternoon, we were incredibly fortunate to have cool weather and the resources of the university at our disposal. Things could have been much worse for us.

Our only two dilemmas now are lack of internet service at home and the state of the city in general. Dan tried to go run errands the other evening and came back saying it was still too crazy out there. From my co-workers I hear of long gas lines, long grocery lines, debris, detours, and traffic lights out everywhere.

This leaves us dependent on our existing food storage at home. It's not a really huge problem for me since I'm content to eat pretty much the same thing day in and day out. But I like to provide Dan with variety and it's starting to become problematic. Or rather, the lack of eggs is becoming problematic. I'm running low on cheese and butter, too, but without eggs I'm having to get creative to avoid serving some variation of rice and beans every day.

I should've stored powdered eggs and that's all there is to it. I used to have some but they tended to clump and were tricky to work with. I feel kind of stupid now for not keeping some on hand anyway. It's an important lesson learned. I also want to find out how to make yogurt without a starter. I think I can do this with acidophillus tablets but I'll have to do a little research first. Yogurt would be great to have as a substitute for sour cream, buttermilk, and cheese. I know how to make yogurt and I have powdered milk. Just nothing to use as a starter. Another lesson learned.

This is not a real crisis, though. We have other food. We have restaurants right here on campus. We can go to the store if we're willing to put in the time and deal with the hassle. But I'm using this experience to understand where my planning gaps are, and eggs and yogurt are big ones.

Last night I made a loaf of honey-wheat bread for sandwiches (we've got plenty of peanut butter) and a focaccia pizza using a focaccia mix I bought several months ago, and Bag Lady's wonderful pizza sauce. I topped it with the last of my mozzarella and some rehydrated onions, tomatoes, zucchini and spinach leaves. It was completely delicious and there's a lot left over. I also found a recipe for empanadas in one of my cookbooks, so I plan to give that a try using minced rehydrated jerky and onions, and with a side of rehydrated refried beans.

So no, we're not starving by any stretch of the imagination. But I never realized until now how much I really needed eggs! Or the internet. I miss being able to read blogs and news at home. I have to rush through things here at the office because I'm supposed to be working.

Like right now.

Damn.

Power Restored!

When I went home for lunch our power was back up. Yay! We still don't have internet because Dan couldn't get the router working before he had to go back to the office but at least the worst is over. I took a late lunch and began doing cleanup and most of my life can resume its normal patterns now. I sure hope Dan can get the router up tonight but if our electricity stays up, I'm happy for now.














What a relief to have air conditioning again!

Signs of Progress

The tree cutters are in our area today, removing the trees from the power lines. Yay! It's a step in the right direction. I just hope once the trees are removed it will be a simple task to get the power restored.

For everyone who keeps asking, we haven't used the soda can stove and now that we have access to our neighbor's house with a gas stove, we won't be doing any more camp cooking. Here is a website that talks about the soda can stove, though: Best Camp Stove Ever

Please be patient with me. I have no electricity or internet at home. It takes a long time to do basic tasks and I'm expected to be at work every day now, too.

Hurricane Pics

The storm hideout in the closet. You can just see Cadbury's ear in the carrier. I had to have a kleenex box in the closet with me because the closet was dusty and I kept sneezing. You can also see I have pillows and a stash of books. When the FM radio stations all went out I read aloud to Dan for awhile until we decided to quit waiting for FM to come back on and found a good AM station instead.











Fearless hurricane bunny!











Dan, checking the doppler on his Blackberry to see if the storm would EVER end. The reason the pic is so bright is because of the camera flash. It was actually very dark in the house and we were doing everything by the light of electric lanterns and glow sticks.












Pixel, high and dry on the fireplace mantel.










The view from our porch the morning after.










The tree that fell in our yard. No little sapling!










The view looking up the street from our house.










Someone who didn't fare as well with their tree.










This one looks bad but it's only cosmetic damage.










This street had three more trees of this size blocking the road, but none fell onto the houses.










Remember my bayou? This is soon after the storm had passed. In the lower left corner you can see the debris where the bayou left its banks, flooding my my neighborhood's streets but thankfully not our houses.










This part of MacGregor Road, about half a mile from my house, was still flooded even after my neighborhood was clear.










By evening the bayou had gone down considerably and the evening light was an odd yellowish color.










Cadbury back in his room, glad to be out of the carrier but puzzled as to why everything is so dark and stuffy.










Pixel, checking out the mosquito netting over the door.










Our neighbor's new trampoline, courtesy of Ike.










Honey, anyone? This explains why our tree fell-- it was a bee tree!










Look closely. The top of the tower is bent over. The satellite is supposed to face the other way.










Farther up my street, toward the bayou.










Someone else who got lucky with the direction their tree fell.










If you look carefully, you can see that some clever person used a fallen branch to prop up a tree that was pulling down a power line. Good thinking, since if the line doesn't break we'll get power back on sooner.










This tree fell in front of my office building.










College of Architecture, with most of the roof of one wing lying on the ground. Same thing happened on the other side of the building. I find it ironic that the College of Architecture was the only one to lose its roof.










Trees and light posts down outside the Computing Center.










Trees uprooted in the picnic area in front of the Computing Center.










Sign on tree says No Parking. Good advice.










Sagging power line at the entrance to my neighborhood.










Why I'm skeptical that we'll have power again anytime real soon.

Connected! Sort of.

I've got wireless connectivity in my office, which means even though my desktop computer is unable to log me on, I can bring in my laptop. Yay!

I'm glad everyone was pleased with my breakfast. It's a big psychological boost to be able to have a nice meal when a lot of other things are out of order. I'm hoping we can have bowtie pasta with pesto and pinenuts tonight, but we'll see how that goes. Heating water with sterno is slow and we don't feel completely comfortable using the soda can stove when it's windy out. The soda can stove really would be the better way to do it, though.

This evening I threw out everything left in the freezer that could go bad. It wasn't much-- just a few emergency frozen dinners that we keep on hand to pop in the microwave if we run out of "real" food during the week. I moved the remaining ice into the fridge, so we've got one more day before we'll have to bring all our food to my office fridge. By then we're supposed to come back to work anyway so they can't stop me.

Yes, the bastards want us back TUESDAY. Can you believe it? I'll be very surprised if they can find enough students, staff and faculty to make a quorum around here. I talked to my boss earlier today during one of the few times our cell phones were working, and she said no way could she return on Tuesday because she had too much to do. She said some of our co-workers were still in the cities they evacuated to, so they won't likely come to work Tuesday. It ought to be interesting.

I'm putting together a list of what worked, what didn't, and what I would like for next time (should there be one). I'll share that list with you in a day or two in case you live where emergency prep is something you do or should do. I have to say, though, that I've learned a lot over the years, researching my post-apocalyptic novels. I've been lucky with my situation, though. The weather hasn't been unbearable and a cool front is coming tomorrow. We've had water, even hot water (water heater is gas, unlike the stove). We've had the university resources at our disposal, although we're using them sparingly.

Anyway, Dan is off my computer now so that means I should log off as well. We're going to go home and see about dinner. If the pasta doesn't turn out maybe I'll make some of those black-eyed pea cakes. They don't fry well in my stainless steel skillet, but I do have an old teflon one somewhere. Using teflon once every five years or so won't kill me. Not if a hurricane can't.

More tomorrow. I have internet and I can say that. I'll also prep my pictures tonight and post them tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Post-Hurricane - Sunday

I'm on a friend's computer with internet access. Yay! This will have to be short, though, out of consideration.

The hurricane winds were pretty scary from about midnight through 8 am but our house is incredibly solid. The walls didn't even creak. We lost a few metal siding things from the gutters but that appears to be it. We acquired a new wind turbine which we found only a foot away from the cars. We don't know where it came from since no one in the near vicinity lost one. We have a neighbor with a new trampoline, blown into the yard from who knows where.

I've got some great pictures whenever I can get them uploaded.

Our neighborhood is full of downed trees and one street is completely blocked. Most of the rest of the neighborhood is passable though. The first thing everyone did was go outside even before the rain stopped and start moving the branches out of the roads so vehicles could pass. We saw the university cops go through today on patrol and that made me happy.

We finished clearing our yard and driveway of debris today so we look all civilized now except for the downed tree in the yard and the enormous debris pile. Everyone has a debris pile though. We also found that the reason our tree in front fell was that it was partly hollow and contained bees. I took a picture of the honeycomb so I hope the pic turns out.

There's a satellite tower behind our house where the dish blew over and the tower is now bent with the dish facing the opposite direction.

The campus has power and we had dinner in my office break room last night, cooking food from our freezer in the toaster oven. As we lose cool in our fridge we'll slowly take food over there to keep in the office fridge. No one is sending us away when we're on campus so as long as we don't look like we're moving in, we figure it's cool.

I cooked scrambled eggs with chipolte cheddar and gingerbread pancakes this morning over a sterno can. It was too windy to use my soda can stove but I'd like to try that out sometime too.

For light, we have solar yard lamps that we take outside in the day and bring indoors at night. We also have chemical glow sticks. It's all much safer than candles. We have nice LED lanterns, too.

We have no screens for the doors but we rigged up some mosquito netting. Should any mosquitoes get inside despite our efforts we can rig them over the bed at night.

Dan isn't mocking any of my hurricane supply efforts any more.

Still no word on when the university will reopen but it obviously won't be Monday. I think they should give us most or all of the week because of the massive cleanup people have to do and because people who evacuated aren't even back. We need to have enough faculty, staff and students to make a reopening worthwhile and this is a university with over 30,000 students and over 6,000 faculty and staff.

There's a cool front coming soon so this should be the worst day in terms of having no a/c. It's not so bad yet because there's a breeze and it's been overcast much of the day.

In sum, we're doing just fine.

Oh, and Cadbury was a trooper. I put him in his carrier and put him in the closet during the worst of the storm and he made no fuss even though he was cooped up in there for hours. The cat was a little weirded out by everything but the pets did really well.

Okay, I really should get off this guy's computer and let him get back to whatever he was doing. I'll post again whenever I can.

Cell service erratic here. Hard to update blog. Office has power but no internnet. At least we can cook and put things in office fridge. Tempting to move in but they might not like that. Going to. Make breakfast now.

Cell service erratic here. Hard to update blog. Office has power but no internnet. At least we can cook and put things in office fridge. Tempting to move in but they might not like that. Going to. Make breakfast now.

Been out of the woods for about an hour. Very minor damage to house. Gusty wind and light rain now. Don't know when power will be restored. Not hot right now though. People already outside cleaning up.

Tree in yard and driveway is ours. Did not hear a thing in storm. Back yard flodded maybe studio too. So far still ok in house. Just ready forit to be over.

Sustained winds in sixties with gusts in nineties. But not as many scary gusts as before. If we can make it through next two hours without major damage we will be good. All fm radio stations gone since four am. Damn scary gust right now. Boring too. A lot of waiting. And want to sleep but staying up in case pets need me. No daylight yet but curious what is out there. We think a tree is uin driveway.

Lost radio station at four. Carport sounds bad. Water blowing in back door. Water in street. Worst should be over soon.

Power out. Lots more wind and things thumping outside

Closet

I just finished cleaning out the biggest of the hall closets in case we need to shelter in a small space with no windows. Dan will complain about the stuff on the shelves, I'm sure, worrying that it will fall. Whatever. He's sitting around watching TV so if he wants things done a certain way he can do them himself.

Carport

Looks like we're losing part of the roof over the carport. I told Dan we should move the vehicles to the university's new parking garage, but it's too late now. I just hope the carport holds. It's way early in the game for this to be happening.