Saturday, September 25, 2004

I woke up bright & early and full of energy after my class as usual.  The soreness & fatigue would kick in later.  I turned on the TV and saw that we were now under Hurricane Watch and a major storm was heading right for us but might veer.  I woke Galahad up in a panic and told him we had to get busy cuz we were supposed to get hit in 8 hours or so.  The poor guy was sleeping so peacefully, too.  I started calling relatives to see if everyone was okay and actually aware of this.  Hurricane Jeanne became a threat to us so fast.

Galahad's mom asked if we would come over and help with the shutters.  They had taken them all down last week.  *grumble*  We did some preliminary work outside of our house then drove down there to start that.  I was so tense that I burned through the food I had eaten as we walked out the door and arrived there hungry.  Laugh.  Lucky for me, she's used to my ways and made me a quick snack.  Feeder bands started hitting us at about noon and we got soaked fixing up her house.   Afterwards, we ate again and then left to get home before the strong winds and rain became more consistent.

Of course, me being me suggested we sneak onto the beach first.  Galahad being him thought that was an excellent idea.  =)  Last time (Hurricane Frances) we tried it using a major thoroughfare and were thwarted.  This time, I remembered a smaller access road, which wasn't blocked off.  We parked in an empty parking lot since everyone had evacuated and walked onto the beach.  The surfers were out as usual even though we were in a Mandatory Evacuation Area.  They seemed kinda chicken to me, but what do I know.  There were several paddled out, but they were very finicky about which waves they would ride in on.  Finally, I was so cold in the driving wind & rain, that I was happy to leave.  We drove North to the next major road to cut over to the mainland.  The police in all of their infinite wisdom had both ways blocked off and told us to turn around and go back the 15 miles to the smaller road.  :(  Sigh

By the time we got home, the feeder bands were constant.  I ran inside to take my last hot shower before the power failed.  It was like the last dinner of a condemned man.  Galahad cooked up a giant pot of dumplings and we feasted on the living room floor using a cardboard box as our dining table.  I naturally brought out the place-mats.  No reason to live as barbarians.  =)

We finished up all of the inside stuff that needed securing and wished that storm North.  At one point when it was still aiming right for us and they were saying it would be a category 4 hurricane, I panicked and brought out the Lucky Goat Milk.  It had the desired effect of breaking up our somber mood (and perhaps a side effect of sending that storm north :p).

Jeanne did start veering north although we were still in line to catch the outer edges of the hurricane force winds.  It got a bit scary at times listening to the winds whine & howl.   The power flickered and blinked off at one point.  That freaked us out cuz they had been repeating that if we lost power, it could be 3 weeks to get it back.  I was on my laptop chatting to several people all over the world attempting to remain calm & distracted.  Thankfully this storm was moving much faster than Frances so we had only about 8 hours of really intense wind & rain.  It's amazing what you get thankful for, huh?

I was way too tense to sleep so I was up most of the night holding our house together with the power on through sheer willpower.  =D  I woke Galahad up at 2am to watch the 1st ever  Chinese Grand Prix.  I finally shut down my laptop and we moved upstairs to watch TV in bed, where I fell promptly asleep.