Hurricane Ike; Day 3

Monday night, over drinks, our neighbors talked with us about how this had really been fun. While it has been a huge inconvenience, the weather has been nice for this forced camping trip. We are all sleeping pretty well and it is cool enough to do the work we are left with. The kids can play their hearts out and get very dirty, but we are all aware that we are on the verge of problems. For example, the kids really are getting dirty. They have been taking sponge baths every night and the baths are becomming increasingly colder.

DH insisted that I take a shower Monday night. I think I was not smelling pretty, though he denies it. He just kept talking about how there really was enough warm water for a shower. Really.

Well there was not enough for a warm enough shower. Not pleasant.

We also heard at about 8:00 that the schools would be closed again on Tuesday.

We all slept to the sounds of emergency vehicles and neighbor's generators. There were many fires and other emergencies overnight. This included a house in our development that caught on fire when their power was turned on at 5am. Luckily, damage was low, but it all added to the worry.

Tuesday Morning, we heard the details of that house fire and rumors that the power would be out until Saturday. The comforting fact was that our grocery store was open and more gas stations were opening as more sections of the grid were turned on. We were hearing on the news that stations were running out of gas. The first day, delivery trucks were having a hard time getting to their deliveries because so many lights were out. So deliveries were late and everyone was frantically converging on the few gas stations that were opened.

I'm just not driving anywhere until enough power comes on to stabilize the gas situation, and we figured that with the grocer opened, we can buy daily what we need to live on since everything perishable in our fridge would be spoiled by now. Things in our freezer are still covered in crystals (except the soft ice cream that the family finished off Monday night).

I had a front yard to rake since the pear tree was now gone. I spent the morning cleaning low tech; boiling water over Sterno to wash my dishes and sweeping the hard surfaces. The whole place could use a good vacuuming, but that won't happen. Housecleaning was indeed a good way to avoid the raking. I was still sore from raking the back yard Monday.

I had to kick the kids out of the house at 10:00 because Firstborn was convinced he was going to spend the whole day playing DS and Lastborn was going stir crazy. They joined up with all the neighbor kids and hung out in the newly fallen trees.

I headed to the front yard to rake. Nova was tied up in the middle of the yard pulling sticks out of every pile I raked. The three kids across the street were tasked with raking their yard and they started singing 99 bottles of beer on the wall substituting names of soda for each bottle that came down. When they ran out of soda names, I supplied grape nehi and Dr. Pepper for them.

At about 1:00 my kids wandered back to our house with their friends. Everyone was looking for trouble. So I sent them next door where I had heard there were two large boxes of sugar free Popsicles that needed to be eaten before they became a sticky gelatinous mass on her freezer floor. There was a feeding frenzy over the dripping pops. The kids were all in heaven and my neighbor and her mother in law (visiting from Montana for this joyous week) enjoyed watching them. Once the kids were finished, they had to hose down the patio where the feeding frenzy occurred.

At 4pm, the power on the cul-de-sac across the street came on. Firstborn came running home to tell me the power was on, but it was just a tease. We sat watching the porch lights across the street jealously.

Then at 5 our power came on. Cheers were heard all down the street and into the next cul-de-sac.

The funny thing is that I still stop my self on the way into a bathroom and wonder where I left that flashlight last. It took me three days to stop hitting the light switch, now how long will it take me to remember that we have power.

There are still areas of Centerville without power.