Thank God that it is over and it wasn’t as bad as it could have been….

Susan and I got up this morning around 7:30 and it was slightly raining and the winds were blowing a bit. Nothing too bad, but there was a feeling that things were going to get worse. I proceeded to make breakfast. I started frying the sausage, scrambled the eggs, pre heated the oven and put the biscuits on the cookie sheet. Once the sausage was done I poured the eggs into a skillet, began making the gravy and put the biscuits in the oven. Meanwhile Susan was sitting here at the computer reading my post about her phone etiquette, contemplating posting a response to it. I set the oven timer for 16 minutes and concentrated on the gravy, making sure it didn’t get too thick, being sure to add the right amount of milk to mix with the flowered sausage bits in the skillet. After about twelve minutes I sprinkled some salt and pepper into the gravy and happened to notice that the wind had picked up outside and the rain had began to pour down in a slightly more horizontal direction. One minute later, the power goes out, then comes back on, then out again, then back on, then out for good.

Thus began a LONG day without power. But luckily the biscuits were pretty much done along with everything else, so we called the kids down and we had the last warm meal for a while. Afterwards she and I cleaned up the kitchen then I went to take a shower, using the last of the hot water from the hot water heater tank, and we settled in for a crappy hurricane day in Alabama.

My ex wife had given me 8 D batteries yesterday so we were able to have a radio connection to the outside world. We spent the day sitting together, with two wild kids, listening as the hurricane, then the tropical storm, worked it’s way up the state of Alabama from the Gulf Coast. Around 2ish today it hit us with 50mph winds and major rain. I looked out my back door and noticed two of my trees beginning to uproot and lean over onto the neighbor’s fence in the back of my yard. Meanwhile a leak began in the ceiling over the whirl pool tub in our bathroom, around the light, and there was a constant drip for several hours. They were saying on the radio that we could be without power for a few days so we decided to eat as much of the food as we could from the fridge. For lunch we all had bologna and cheese sandwiches, then for a snack we had some pudding cups. We spent the day laying around the living room, playing board games and listening to the radio. Around five this afternoon I decided we needed to make use of the two packs of hot dogs in the fridge, and since the wind and rain had died down a little I opened the garage door and fired up the grill. I cooked 16 hot dogs and we had them with doritos. I hate to say it but the four of us ate all 16 of the hot dogs, well I probably ate 8 of them, but we couldn’t let them go to waste. After all we could be without power for days….As we were cleaning up from dinner, around 6ish, all of a sudden the power came back on!! Wow, you would have thought we had gone for days without electricity. Spending 10 plus hours, all in one room, with two wild kids, made it feel like days had passed.

So here I sit, bathed in the sweet artificial light of the fixture over my head, thankful that things didn’t turn out as bad as they could have, and sorry for those on the coast who had it so much worse than we did here in the middle of the state. There were some deaths, as I am sure you have heard, in the panhandle. Alabama got off rather well, other than some destruction in Gulf Shores and Mobile. The deaths in Panama City were due to tornadoes. Let us keep all those folks down there in our thoughts as they dig themselves out of this mess that Ivan has left. Looks like tomorrow will be a “clean up the yard” day. There are plenty of branches and leaves all over the yard. Thank you for the comments to my post yesterday about the storm. Feels good to know that you folks were sending good wishes down here for us.

Later ya’ll….