Not Your Average Jane

My Hurricane Ike Experience

Friday was a sort of hectic day. I spent it packing up my stuff and Maggie’s stuff to go to Moms. She came over and picked up Maggie’s kennel Friday morning and went off to run some more errands while I finished packing. After a quick lunch I got a phone call from mom that she was back at her townhouse and I could go ahead and come over whenever I was ready. Since I was so I went ahead and put Maggie in the truck and went over to her place in the Galleria. After I unloaded all my stuff and had parked my truck in her garage, I unpacked everything and started a load of laundry. I had barely finished my dark load when the power flickered and went out. And it was only 6 pm!

So we pretty much chilled out and watched movies on my laptop since I had juiced it up the day before. We finally went to bed around 10 ish. But we had to wake up every 2 hours because my stepdad’s roof leaks like nothing else. The man has buckets set up in the attic to catch leaks whenever it rains. He refuses to get a new roof because he’s a cheapskate. Its also why he has dial up and no cable. So we got up every 2 hours to empty out buckets which took a little less than an hour each time. Around 2 in the morning, I’m dead asleep when Maggie jumps into bed and wakes us up. We end up hauling her kennel upstairs and putting her in it before going back to bed. And the getting up every few hours thing continued. Aside from some heavy rain and really strong wind I couldn’t really tell we were in the midst of a Cat 2 Hurricane. Either that or I was just really sleep deprived.

So we finally wake up Saturday to find that there’s no damage to the townhouse just a bunch of tree limbs and leaves all over the place. We spent most of Saturday cleaning up and sleeping. Saturday night we ended up watching movies on Mom’s laptop which was halfway charged.

Sunday we woke up bright and early and drove around town surveying the damage around town and looking for a latte for mom. We found a handful of places open but no Starbucks. We checked in with Linz and found that there was no damage to her townhouse but the fence in the back had fallen down. Luckily it had fallen away from the townhouse toward the empty lot next door. Sunday night we ended up eating at Willie G’s which was open with a limited menu. We found out that Katy Mills had power and their movie theater was open. So we planned to go there Monday. After the sun went down Sunday night I attempted to read by flashlight, that only last like half an hour before I gave up the ghost and went to bed at like 10.

Monday we headed out to Katy Mills after lunch and spend a couple of hours shopping. We checked out the movie theater and decided on a movie and a time. Then we did some more shopping, I sat and charged my cell phone for a bit, and picked up a couple of booklights before heading back to the movie theater to watch the House Bunny. It was one of those cute, comedy type movie. With the exception of a bunch of loud ass teenagers who luckily stayed quiet during the movie it was good. We went back to Mom’s after that and while she talked on the phone I broke in my booklight. Around 11 I finally went to bed.

Tuesday we went to a cute little restaurant in Uptown Park for breakfast and then Mom dropped me at the Galleria so I could charge my laptop and went to Linz’s to clean up there a bit. When she picked me up a few hours later she told me that Linz had power back as of last night and we were moving there that afternoon. I went to my apartment and took out like 6 bags of garbage (all food from the fridge and freezer that had gone bad) and tried to clean up a bit. So later we took everything over to Linz’s around and ended up drinking wine and hanging out watching TV. I got a phone call from a neighbor that we had power back, then a text from another neighbor letting me know the same thing… But since it was after 10 I went ahead and stayed at Linz’s that night.

Wednesday I finally moved back into my apartment. Thursday I began a massive cleaning of my apartment. Which I’m still not done with. But at least its far more livable than it was before. I still need to vacuum, and clean the bathroom and my bedroom but otherwise its done.

After everything’s been said and done, no one I know was hurt, no major damage has been done to any of my family’s homes (the fence at Linz’s and my door sticking are the worst of it), and the fact that Mom still doesn’t have power I’m pretty lucky. Plus I’ve gotten to know a lot of my neighbors because of this. And I’ve gotten to know some of Mom’s neighbors too. And some of my neighbors are hotties. But then I knew that before too… I just wasn’t on a first name basis with all of them, shocking as that may be. But its been an interesting week or so. And its still not quite over! I have no clue what I’m doing this weekend… I don’t know whats open or whose playing where. But I did go to Spec’s and get some wine so I at least I have that and a couple of overdue Blockbuster movies I haven’t watched if nothing else.

posted by Ali @ 5:02 PM