bail baby bail

Yup.  Hurricane Irene hit us, but we were prepared... sort of.  In the 48 hours leading up to the storm, my husband got a little "hysterical" and impatient with my lack of diligence.  I tried to keep up with him, but I just didn't have the same commitment.
It started out pretty mildly: "Vamos," he said.  "We have to fill up your car and go to the bank to get some cash."
I went along with these things and tried to sound calm but aware of the looming threat.  When we got to the bank, there was a line outside the ATM entrance and I gamely took my place.  It moved quickly and ten minutes later we were right there at the door... when I realized that I hadn't actually brought my ATM card.  Hubby was pretty calm - and we drove home to get it (we live close).  Almost no line when we got back, so it could have been worse.  When we got home from the bank/gas station, my husband decided to go to home depot to buy some tubes to take the water from the rain spouts away from the house.  I really did NOT want to go to Home Depot so I quickly thought up the excuse that I might need to head out to look for L (son) who had not returned from soccer practice yet.  Actually, I still had cleaning to do in kitchen, because... did I mention?  We have been having guests over at our house almost daily (my husband's ex-wife's sister and brother in law.)  But, I did sneak up to my room also to lie on my comfy bed and read for a while ahhhh....

Saturday, the preparations, took of full steam ahead.  Hubby began to ask for clean buckets, which he washed and filled with water (even though I had already stored some water in old 2 liter coke bottles and in a huge pot).  Still, it made sense - if it floods in our community, the water treatment plant can be taken out of commission for a while).  We'd gone to the farmer's market and to the store on Friday, but hubby wasn't satisfied: wanted to buy extra food (for us and for guests).  I convinced him that, really, we didn't have anywhere to put it... but he could buy things that could be stored without refrigeration.  End result: I have diet soda, lemonade and fruit punch galore and packets and packets of galletas maria (Goya).  Don't know if you've tried them, but they're pretty addictive.  (The after-effects of the storm for me will be cholesterol and tooth decay.)

But that's not all folks... Yours truly had to get up on our roof to clean out the rain spouts.  Always a good thing to keep up with, so that was fine with me.  L really wanted to get up on the roof instead of me, but I've done it so many times already and his father gets nervous -(he got his chance later...) Then, some brilliant neighbor told hubby that we had better take down our awning.  I had kind of convinced him that we could leave it.  So, I got back on the roof to undo the awning.  Hubby and I had a public argument (in Spanish) because he was very nervous about whether I knew how to take down the awning.  I didn't. BUT, I knew that I had done it before and that it hadn't been hard.  So, I got up on the ladder again to climb up on the roof, but this time the screws which hold the top of the awning in place were impossible to move.  Sent son up to give it a try; he can't do it either.  They are placed very awkwardly right below the gutter.  Finally I got up there again with a wrench and a hammer (not necessary last time) and managed to get things unscrewed.

I won't go into the details of how I led my husband through the harrowing ordeal of me constantly remembering things about taking that awning down... one by one... after we were well under way with the process.  But, I was right.  We did it and it was pretty easy.

So, then the guests came over for the daily chat over food and coffee etc.  I was a mess, of course, and still needed to get out in the rain to lock up my bike and put the ladders away safely.

Still we had windows to try to get down (very old house) and I had to convince my hubby not to board up a window on the porch; I had to pick things up off the basement floor because it can get very humid or damp in heavy heavy rains... etc etc. etc.

Went to bed on Saturday night and the storm was starting already.  Turned out that I hadn't done the one obvious and fairly easy thing that would have saved me a lot of headaches and backaches today.  I didn't roll up all of the rugs and floor coverings that I have in the basement.  The wind wasn't too bad, but we got socked by the rain I guess.  The floor wasn't damp or humid, WE HAD A FRICKING FLOOD.  When I woke up in the morning --7:40 am -- I found my hubby shoveling water off the floor into buckets.

I got the snow shovel and we started shoveling.  Got me son down there to help pretty quickly (when I realized that my hubby wasn't going to call him but was expecting him to understand that his duty was to help).  None of that pride for me - I prefer the open nagging with  a good dose of guilt to boot.  Ha ha.  In the end, son helped a ton - more, in fact, than hubby.  But, no doubt that we all had a long day.