Frankenstorm: we did something right!

Just a teensy note to correct a sentiment I expressed here about the makeshift window sealing job we did-and then ridiculed-yesterday...guess it actually did some good and I shouldn't be so flippant about it.

The building sent the maintence team through early this morning to asses & begin fixing any damage...evidently lots of apartments had similar problems with the windows on that side of the building, and most of them had much worse damage than our own. We had some soggy towels to launder and a bit of damp paint around the window, but that's about it...evidently many of our neighbors weren't so lucky and had extensive damage to their walls & carpets. We've heard the watervavs going all morning, and lots of sounds of furniture being moved.

Counting ourselves lucky (again!) and feeling glad that we took the precautions we did, even if we thought they were silly and inadequate at the time.

Frankenstorm: hurricane, baby!

Well, we made it through the night!

Actually it weren't no thang...mom, James and I stayed up til like midnight watching the storm, then (after several friends helped us figure out that the blue sphere thingies were probably an electrical substation exploding-awful!) put on an episode of Dr Who and by the time it was done, the winds had died down considerably. I still couldn't sleep, but there were no more major weather events that took our attention.

I wish I could say the same for our beloved NYC and all of our friends there. It sounds like a bit of a nightmare scenario out there right now, at least for some folks. One of the scariest things this morning is the relative radio silence...after many hours of constant info pouring out of the area via social media, checking this morning and only seeing updates from 3 NYC folks (and all with dire news) was a bit disheartening. As we get farther into the power outages and people's phones are dying, I hope that everyone is able to reach those they need and that everyone stays safe. Here's to a speedy recovery/cleanup for all!!

As for us, we're cautiously reverting from hurricane watch mode back to baby watch mode. Sunday, as the pressures began to change, I could feel how easy it would be to accidentally set off labor - every little thing I did would set off contractions...being unsure of the severity of the impending storm and not knowing if my midwives would be able to safely make it to me in the midst of it, I took it super easy and went out of my way to avoid any potential triggers. Yesterday, when the storm was at its worst, I had pretty frequent but super irregular contractions all day, and towards the evening they got very consistent for an hour or so, and i started getting the brain-scatteredness that comes with labor...but then the contractions lessened back to irregular and mild, and though they're still occasionally popping up this morning, they don't seem to be part of anything larger.

My still scattered and hormonal brain is worried that I somehow "missed" something I was supposed to take advantage of for an easy labor, but I know that isn't rational...trying to let it go, and we'll have fun today finishing our Halloween crafts before the holiday tomorrow!!!

Today's plan: sock puppet bats!! Footprint ghosts!! Maybe even handprint cats...

Frankenstorm: What the...

So, we're a tad freaked right now...

Cadence opted to sleep in the "playhouse" (a giant walk-in closet in the interior of the apt...really probably the safest place to be right now) so James kept her company in there while I cuddled with Hazel on the couch.  (Hazel was going to sleep in the playhouse but got very angry when bedtime came and ended up wanting to be with me wherever I was, so we settled in on the couch while mom sat next to us...

So, laying there in the semi-dark I start to see lightening...but it's odd, it's remarkably blue.  After several flashes I remarked to mom that it was quite the lightening, and she agreed, but it wasn't until a few minutes later, after James and I decided (based on how much the balcony door -which is pretty well protected by the terrace walls and not even on the side of the building that's taking the brunt of the storm - was shaking and straining) to close off the room with the leaky window (wind and rain coming through the glass...not terrible, but that is the window that's facing the hardest hit side of the house, and if the winds are going to continue to increase as they say, it's not one I want to rely on... ) and had herded the cats out of there and shut the door (SACRILEGE!) and James, mom and I were all back in the living room when we saw it for what it actually was...

"What the hell was that?"

So, I don't *think* it's lightening...it was a giant, bright blue sphere that appeared (as if blooming) on the horizon (at ground level) and flashed so bright it lit up the entire sky just as lightening does, and then retreated into itself and disappeared, as if closing up.  What. The. Crap.

I saw it first, and had just enough time to explain what it was before James was on his feet, seeing it for himself as it happened again behind my back, and then Mom was up too, and we all watched a third burst...it didn't happen again in a brief time and I realized that when I had been laying on the couch and noticed the blue quality of the "lightening" I was seeing, I had noted that it seemed like it was coming in waves...several (maybe three?  I wasn't really paying attention!) 'bolts' in a row, then nothing...

I have my camera at the ready now, so if I see it again I'm gonna grab it and try to record it...but that's probably a guarantee that it won't come back.  Does anyone have any clue as to what that could have been?  It was unlike any lightening I've ever seen (and I have seen ball lightening before), and it was originating from the exact same spot every time...I wouldn't call it a UFO 'cause, as I said, it seemed to be originating from the ground (or at least only slightly above it)...google did me no good, my searches only turned up UFO reports that didn't seem anything like what we saw...anyone else in the DC metro/MD area see this thing?  Anyone know what it is??

WEIRD.

Frankenstorm: Worrying about friends

Things are still relatively consistent/calm in our area...

James remarked a while ago that he was surprised to see people still driving around out there...and just a few minutes later the news started reporting that Maryland had its first storm-related fatality, and it was due to a car crash right here in our county.

Still, I feel pretty lucky, our little fam is doing just fine so far...the lights have flickered every now and again, and there are still scary gusts, but for the most part the winds aren't so bad as to take attention away from what's happening indoors, so that's good...

Checking facebook has been far scarier than anything that I have seen on the news, because soooo many of our friends - most of them back in NYC - have been posting real-time, real-life pictures, videos,  and reportings of things happening to them and around them.  Friends have posted about streets  being underwater, pics of water covering entire stairwells, submerged cars, downed trees, cranes dangling dangerously from high rise construction sites, entire facades of buildings tearing away, collapsing scaffolding, the east river flooding its banks and making an island of the carousel in DUMBO...The girls' school is right across the river from that carousel, actually, and seeing the extent of the flooding on the brooklyn side gives little hope that our stompin' grounds on the other side will be able to muddle through without taking a bit of a bath.

Stay safe, everyone, I hope that whatever damage happens is manageable and only to material things...Much love coming to you from a blustery DC...we're staying safe, listening to the wind rattle the balcony door...Despite our sealing, there is enough wind coming in that bedroom window to make the call to spend tonight on the other end of the house for sure, so its off to prep the kids for a campout-at-home.

Love love love to all!

EDITED TO ADD:
WTF, EXPLOSIONS, now?  seriously?  Hope most of you are bored senseless and not in imminent danger...

Frankenstorm: WAVES!!!

So we have a cute little terrace up here in our skyline abode, and usually speaking it stays remarkably dry in any rain, since there is an identical balcony above us which covers the same area.  The wind has to be blowing pretty hard for rain to get more than a few inches in on the edges...

Now the wind is blowing hard enough that the water is pretty horizontal , and our terrace (which also features drainage holes) is pretty well drenched.  So drenched, in fact, that I don't feel like I am exaggerating when I say "flooded"...especially given the fact that the wind is now causing WAVES to lap at the balcony door!!

OK fine, you can't really tell that its waves based on my poor point-and-shoot still photography...the lighter areas there are MOVING WATER.

The pond is also looking rather swollen  - I think the ducks have finally taken shelter...

Feel free to correct me if you can spot any ducks.

And one of the benches in our little park flipped over...

Reminds me of the sarcastic "never forget" meme of the overturned plastic chair...but this bench is significantly heavier.

Our bedroom window has leaked through our gerry-rigged sealing system and we're now considering just relocating the whole family to the other end of the house for the night...juuuuuust in case.
It's starting to get chilly in here...but the power's still on (for now) and that falafel smells divine!  DINNER!

Frankenstorm: Welcoming Sandy

Well, here we are about a year after our exciting little mini adventure with Hurricane Irene, living in a new city under very different circumstances, and we're right in the path of the "catastrophic" and "devastating" effects of another "historic" storm: hurricane Sandy, AKA Frankenstorm.
I figure-hey, we've already got the hurricane tag for posts here, and why not? Could be fun. Plus, it's kinda neat to see the similarities and differences in the storms and our reactions to them.

An opening recap of what'd gone down so far:

So we're in the dc metro area for this (hurricane + nor'easter + couple o' cold fronts from different angles =  megastorm), living on the 19th floor of a high rise building without much of anything else this tall around us.  There are trees everywhere (granted, all well below us) but nothing to shield our building from the winds this time around.

We've taken the usual precautions, stocking up on non-perishable food, filling every empty juice container we could get our hands on with potable water, filling (both!) bathtubs with water for flushing/cleaning should that become necessary... and, as with last year, we have obsessively checked the weather forecasts at various intervals to see what we're in for...and been pretty consistently told we're totally in for it (even the radar showed the big red spot headed straight for us!  Imminent danger! it'll be here within the hour and the power will be GONE!) ...and then there wasn't really much to speak of other than some cool lookin' clouds and drizzle.  Glad to keep the family safe, but kinda silly nonetheless.

I was supposed to have a community prenatal session this afternoon (wherein all the home-birthing moms due around the same time travel to the midwives' homes instead of the midwives coming to ours - a chance to meet other families within the home-birth community and an opportunity for discussion and education and all that good stuff), but given the weather, it was postponed until next week, and the midwives braved the morning storm to makes sure they checked in on every one of us before the worst of the storm hits.  Good news:  Baby and I are just fine! Yay.  So back to hurricane endurance.

Hazel's creations on the left,  Cadence's on the right.

So far, we've been spending our time hangin' out and having fun...the past few days we've spent doing Halloween crafts, which we continued today.  The kids have been VERY busy carving jack-o-lanterns, crafting ghosts out of cheesecloth (with sharpie-drawn faces!) and decorating foam pumpkin decorations with spooky-themed stickers.  This morning Mom helped them to hang their ghosts, pumpkins, and pumpkin wreaths up, and then they settled in for today's creation:  Jar-o-lanterns.  Basically, you take a mason jar, make a masking tape face on it, and then paint the whole thing orange. When you remove the tape and insert a light source...non - perishable jar-o-lantern.  They did a first coat of paint this am, and once they're dry we're planning to do one more coat before  removing the tape.

Spooooooooky!

As the wind and rain have been picking up, we did have our first "eek!" moment when James discovered that our bedroom window was leaking, but even that was pretty comical as we took our crafting skills towards sopping up the excess and creating a makeshift seal.  The wind is really hitting the building from that direction, so that's the area that is getting the brunt of it.  As such we decided to seal it as best we could, and then cover the sill in towels just in case, and close the blinds juuuust in case the window did happen to blow out.  And then we decided that we should move the bed out from under the window, too.  Which meant moving everything in the room, pretty much, which of course happened to be a mess.  So that was a silly little adventure, but was soon accomplished.

not that you can really see our hack, but the whole window well have been stuffed with paper towels, covered in duct tape, and then covered with cloth towels and the blinds (not pictured.)  The white on the horizon is just clouds, visibility is moderate at best right now.

 James and the kids are now in the kitchen, cookin' up some falafel...the winds are getting a bit more howl-y now, and the rain is holding steady...But, since there are still ducks chillin' in the (VERY swollen) pond outside, I think we're ok for the time being.

If you look closely at the center of the photo, you can see the little specs that are the ducks, I swear!

(iphone photography from 19 stories up through 50mph winds ain't easy.)

Unexpected emotional fallout

When I was little, my dad used to sing Cat Steven's song Moonshadow to me as I went to sleep at night.  (Among many others, but that one always stuck with me for some reason.)  I have no idea why, but I always had a really strong connection in my head between that song and our cat, Ashley, a big ole russian blue tomcat.  (Dad and I used to have constant arguments about whether he was a black cat [I firmly believed he was.  He honestly looked black to me!!] or grey...) In that sort of ephemeral way that things connect when you're a child, Ashely was my moonshadow, that's just how it was.

Me and Ashley helping dad in the kitchen sometime in the mid 80's...

Fast forward about 20 years, and now I sing  Moonshadow to my own kids almost every night.  I remember being really struck when Cadence was first born, and I first began singing it, that I got the same comfort and pleasure out of singing it to her as I did when I was little and Dad was singing it to me.  It was more than nostalgia-it was total recall.  Far beyond simply enjoying getting to share the experience, it restored that safe feeling entirely.

Anyway, both Cadence and Hazel now adore that song, and will even sing softly along with me sometimes...and I suppose it naturally follows that I now think of Puy, who is also at least partially russian blue (she has that same coloring!) as being their moonshadow.  We've always referred to her as our shadow cat, even before we had kids and the song came into play... I think it's because she's the color of a shadow - which, I can now see and admit, is NOT black. Though Cadence and I even have that same argument dad and I used to have, and of course I'm on the side dad used to be on...but I don't argue too hard, because I have such visceral memories of KNOWING that Ashley was black, and not understanding why dad didn't agree.  Maybe it's something about developing a discerning eye, but I honestly couldn't tell the difference.  Perhaps she can't see it yet, either.   But I digress:

This journey with Puy is certainly not mine to claim as major emotional turmoil (I'm not the one losing a limb without any warning or ability to understand why...) but there have certainly been moments of deep emotional impact.  Some have had more of a comic backdrop - like the time during the weekend before her surgery, when I walked into the kitchen looking for comfort, telling James that I didn't want to take Puy's leg away, at the precise moment that he was disarticulating a chicken leg at the hip and ripping it apart from the body - and some are more just heart-wrenching, like watching my beloved little kitten trying to navigate this strange and horrible thing that is happening to her.  The instance that inspired this post, though, is one that came totally from left field, which is, I guess, how grief tends to getcha.

Last night was the first night that I have sung that particular song since Puy's surgery, and I have to admit it struck me rather hard.  That second verse just suddenly felt so much more...close to home, or something.  

"And if I ever lose my legs, I won't whine, and I won't beg. For if I ever lose my legs, oh if, I won't have to run no more."  

My poor little moonshadowcat...she lost her leg, more literally than I would ever have expected, but she is absolutely picking up and carrying on. 

Good kitty.