Oh, the Weather Outside is Frightful...

At least this year it waited until AFTER Halloween to start snowing!

Civic Duty Done!

My obligatory shot, with Instagram filter, of my I Voted sticker.
It was also Dalí's first election!

Get Your Vote On!

Image courtesy of nirots
FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Tomorrow is Election Day and no matter who you vote for, get out there and VOTE! Be heard! And if you still have no idea who you want for your president, you can always write "April Baker" on the line. I'll be happy to take the job! I know for 100% everything I will tell myself will be the truth.

Descending into Madness

I promise, this is my last post about the Frankenstorm. During the storm of early last week, I kept a diary of events. It is very clear from my writings, that I did not handle being without power very well. You'll see what I mean as you read it.

Disclaimer: No humans or animals were harmed during the course of events. Can't say that about my sanity though.

Monday

Morning and Afternoon - Typical damp day. Winds are pretty strong. Mom heads to work, post office, vet, and then is home by 10am. Rest of day like a regular Saturday around here when everyone is home... even though it’s a Monday.

4:30pm - Finishing up with laundry, changing sheets, putting away clean clothes, and preparing for the city’s power substations to shut down.

5:22pm - Two hours before the substations are to be shutdown to avoid any major problems, a transformer has blown in the neighborhood. Dad gets warm meal. Mom and I eat sandwiches.

8:22pm - Record broken for the longest time without power. Record breaking is overrated.

8:30pm - Mom using iPad. Bored. Going to bed. Ambien induced sleep kicks in.

10:00pm - Mom returns iPad. Write poem about Sandy. Must have revenge on Sandy. 

Tuesday

2:30am - Gryffin's dish is empty. He lets me know in every way imaginable. House is really, really dark except for a little bit of glow from the full moon. Or maybe it's Spike Lee.

6:30am - Gryffin becomes giant pain in the butt, again, because his food dish is empty. Now at 12+ hour mark for no power.

Morning - Sleep on and off. Thought power was restored. Wake up to find out it wasn't real. Go back to sleep.

11:00am - Tour outside. Everything non-living survived.Trees not so lucky. Sunny out. Take photos.

1:00pm - House runs out of Coke, still good on the cupcakes.

1:15pm - Dress new Becky doll. Take some photos. Pack her away with Mandy. Try to upload photos to Toy Box FB page. Phone won't let me. Hate phone.

1:30pm - Dad leaves for work after he gets new Taylor Swift song suck in head. Must now take ice pick to brain to remove it.

Afternoon - Test out some new building toys. Very anticlimactic. Buying them was more fun than playing with them. Still, will be useful for blog project. Also, more sleep.

5:00pm - Next street over has power restored. Streetlight shines right through front window. It is taunting me.

6:00pm - Governor press conference. Tells us nothing new.Radio hosts suck. Want to punch them.

6:30pm - Eating warm salads by flashlight. Watch as light gets dimmer and dimmer. Flashlight dies.

7:30pm - Write piece on Women's issues. Need facts and can't get them. Wish for old timey encyclopedias. Get angry. Move on to modern day issues. Get angrier at people's stupidity. Change to different article.

8:30pm - Neighbor gets a generator. Generator is crazy loud.Want to punch neighbor in head.

9:30pm - MacBook battery dies. iPad at 52%. Droid has a full charge thanks to battery backup.

10:00pm - Neighbor's generator stops. Hoping it has run out of gas.

10:10pm - Neighbor's generator restarts. Thinking about stealing it. If it’s going to be super load, I might as well benefit from it.

10:20pm - Open SimCity App. City in the red. Unleash all disasters on city. Watch it burn.

10:30pm - Ambien kicks in. Gryffin is snoring. Sleep has taken me.

Wednesday

1:30am - Need to pee. Stub toe on way to bathroom. Smear blood on cheeks like warrior. Feel like I should have a spear in hand.

2:21am - The generator has stopped. And there is no longer power on the next block over. Cackling like a bad movie villain.

3:00am - Gryffin starts crying over empty dish. Think it would be fun to hunt him like deer. Grabs a spear.

4:30am - Looters have come. Must defend home. Going to give head hunting a try.

5:00am - Have two heads to start my collection. Also got a squirrel. Wearing its paw on a string around my neck.

5:16am - Sensing my desire to hunt him, Gryffin deploys his cuddle moves and climbs into my bed. Calm washes over me.Followed quickly by a heat wave. How can one tiny little thing generate so much heat?!

6:45am - Realize it has been over 36 hours without any political nonsense. Smile for first time in days.

8:20am - Still powerless. Woke up in major pain with dry blood on my face. Feel like I might have been to war in my sleep. Mom and dad both at work. It's cold and wet outside. Gryffin has come to snuggle, going back to sleep.

10:20am - Seems like reports of rain all day were wrong.Sunny out. Can no longer trust food in fridge, so having cold pop tarts for breakfast.Forgetting what the taste of warm food feels like.

11:30pm - Head outside to attack dead trees. Trees attack back. Stupid zombie trees. Hands covered in sap. Overhead full of widow makers.Give up and climb back into bed.

12:00pm - Battery backup runs out of power. Phone at half power. Get notification of system update, repetitively. Phone isn't going to make it much longer. iPad at 38%

12:10pm - Mail was delivered. Mailbox now overflowing with political flyers. Fight urge to chase mailman down the street like rabid dog.

2:00pm - Sun has abandoned us. It's getting cold. Sleep has overtaken me.

2:30pm - Cupcakes are all gone. Mother Nature has bested me.She is like a scorned mistress.

3:30pm - Used last bit of phone power to text Happy Birthday to dear friend. iPad at 23%.

4:00pm - Mom stops home with mozzarella sticks. Stomach does not know how to react to lukewarm food. She takes all devices back to her office to recharge.

5:00pm – Tummy revolts.

5:15pm – Gryffin is crying his little head off. I’m not sure why. He is asking to be hunted.

5:30pm – I’m alone. It’s cold. House is getting dark.Realized it is Halloween. There is no candy in the house. Glad doorbelldoesn’t work.

5:45pm – Found a candle and a lighter. Going to go old school and write by it. Manage to get a number of pages done. Have indent in my finger from the pencil.

6:00pm – Wishing I had some music… “When a cold wind blows it chills you chills you to the bone. But there's nothing in nature that freezes your heart like years of being alone”.

7:00pm - Sitting alone in the cold, dark family room with my thoughts. Feel sanity slowly slipping away. It feels like I have been sitting here forever.

7:30pm - Made friends with a flame. I named her Amelia. She likes to dance.

7:45pm - Amelia is just sitting there, waiting. She is the flame that waited.

8:00pm - Mom returns home with a full charged battery backup and phone. iPad only got charged to 70%.

8:15pm - Amelia blinks and then she was gone.

8:30pm - Curled up in bed waiting for sleep to carry me away. Hoping the end is near.

10:00pm - Still no power. Pull on a pair of sneakers, grab my spear, and go hunt down the blown transformer.

10:15pm - Transformer found, turns out to be a Decepticon. We battle. He breaks my spear. Defeated, I return home and crawl into bed. 

Thursday

1:25am - Woken up by a strange, but familiar sound. "Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?"A 12:00 flashes blood red in the corner. The cable box is doing its restart dance. Random lights are on. Power has been restored.

7:00am - House is a buzz. Alive. Steam rolls out from the bathroom. A blow dryer turns on. 

10:00am - Turn on the laptop. Greeted by the familiar sounds of a Mac booting up. My TARDIS lets off a warm glow.

11:00am - Took a hot shower. As the hot water rains over me, I feel my sanity slowly returning.

1:15pm – Final Entry – Sitting down to a bowl of mac &cheese and a glass of Coke, while playing some games on Facebook. My world has returned to normal. Hoping the rest of the East Coast isn’t too far behind. 

After the Storms: Photos of Frankenstorm's Wrath

Here is a little photo tour of how the Frankenstorm hit my corner of the world. Not too terrible, but I would have preferred it didn't happen at all, as I'm sure most of the East Coast is preferring.

How I spent the evening after both my iPad and laptop died

My front yard... not all that different from the before photos I posted in my prepping for the storm post

Back stairs the morning after the storm

Large limb that fell

 Was once a very tall pine tree, reduced to a pile of branches

Where the pine tree once stood, a lot of its branch are caught up in the branch of other trees. Next storm we have (due later this week I believe) is going to knock them all down

 This tree has been dead for awhile... Sandy struck the final blow

With my backyard being woods, with a lot of dead trees, we were pretty lucky nothing fell on the garage or house or power lines... heck all the trees that fell in my neighborhood landed away from people's property.

This photos I didn't take, but I wanted to show you what happened just 3 miles South of me at our beach.

Photo: Christian Abraham / CT from CTpost.com

Photo: Christian Abraham / CT from Ctpost.com

Associated Press from The Wall Street Journal

Let's just say that's not how it is supposed to look, however, it's still not as bad as New York or New Jersey. We were pretty lucky... didn't stop people looting or tossing threats at the police, fire, or utility service... but that's a whole other story that I'll get into some other time.  

While my immediate area ended up pretty okay, my Tri-State area sisters NY & NJ, did not. If you would like to help out any areas that were damaged during the storm, you can donate $10 to the Red Cross by texting REDCROSS to 90999 or visit the American Red Cross to see what else you can do!

Goodnight Sandy

On Monday night, we lost power at 5:22pm. Not long after the worst of the storm arrived and lasted most of the night. While trying to fall asleep that evening, I grabbed my iPad and typed out this... poem? short story? I'm really not sure what to call it. It's just my feelings as the storm was happening that night.   It's inspired by the children's book Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. 


Goodnight Sandy

Goodnight melting clock, that ticks and tocks.

Goodnight darkness, cold and damp, not a drop of light to spare.

Goodnight trees, once proud and green standing your ground. Hope good morning doesn't find you on the ground, stripped of your leaves and limbs and souls.

Goodnight wind, blowing hard and fast, making houses creak and children weep. May good morning find you blowing a different tune.

Goodnight my little corner of the world, all battered and bruised. Fight hard and stay strong, the end is near.

Goodnight all humans, sharing concern and care. Watch over each other, for the road to healing and repair will be long and hard and in need of a hand.

Goodnight Sandy, but beware. We will forgive, but never forget. You will leave us stronger than you found us, closer than we were.

Goodnight for now, for when the dawn breaks it will be a new day and we will begin to repair the damage you have done.

National Blog Posting Month - Take 2

After spending the last three days without power due to Hurricane Sandy, I did a lot of thinking... and a lot of writing. For a long time, I've been keeping a list of post ideas for all of my blogs and would have full chucks of those posts in written in my head, yet didn't have the motivation to sit down and type them. The storm gave me a chance to sit down and write, without modern day distractions. It seems I managed to get over whatever was stopping me and I want to try to keep it going.

Last November, I tried to take part in National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) and only managed to do 16 posts. Had good intentions, but lacked something. So this November, I'm going to try it again! Here goes nothing!

Wish me luck! And I hope you enjoy all my posts!