The Storm One (#25)

So, Sandy.

We, personally, are unscathed. We had more damage during the non-storm on Memorial Day when three trees fell on our house.

The estimate is that 150 trees are down in our neighborhood, but our only inconvenience is that we don’t have power yet and probably won’t for another week. Gas is hard to get and the commute into the city to work is a different adventure every day.

But the grocery store is open and stocked; we have hot water; the stove works. We even have a generator that runs as long as we find gas for it. By all counts, we’re lucky as hell.

Yet even that is enough to send me over the edge. The logistics of day-to-day living have never been my forté, ever, long before I somehow became responsible for helping with the logistics of six other people besides myself and two dogs. Now it’s all about logistics and it takes all my energy to make anything resembling normalcy, and I feel like a complete asshole as I stare down my limitations; limitations both in my attitude and what I’m able to make happen.

Because this is nothing like narrowly escaping your house after it breaks into three pieces and gets sucked into the Atlantic. It’s nothing like having your two children swept out to sea right out of your arms. It’s not a damn thing like losing everything you own. It isn’t like having your houseboat now docked in someone’s back yard, seeing your drowned neighbors pulled out of their attic, not having access to clean water or food or heat anywhere, or dealing with how the hell you clean up when on Tuesday the sea was in your house halfway up the second floor.

I’m very lucky and it’s time to start acting like it.

Jersey Boys is going to be part of the telethon tomorrow on Good Morning America to raise funds for hurricane relief. We sure would appreciate it if you tune in and give a donation if you can. The cast is arriving pre-dawn, I’m arriving pre-cast, and the guys that run the show get there some time around one a.m. (even though they don’t have power either and their commute is also an adventure).

Extra pictures today because I felt like it.

Here are your links.

Here’s where you can donate to the Red Cross.

To help find gas in the area, check out GasBuddy. Twitter is a good resource as well; this article lists several potentially useful Twitter handles. Your local paper is also a good bet.

Pictures of boats on train tracks: New Jersey Transit

Crazy-ass pictures of the hurricane’s impact on the city: The Grist

We all need to laugh, and sometime can stand to change our stinky attitudes. Here’s one of my all-time favorite posts on Hyperbole and a Half: Sneaky Hate Spiral.

The best remedy for a sneaky hate spiral is gratitude, and I have an awful lot to be grateful for. Here are two, illustrated:

As a direct result of last year’s storm, I have a tiny pumpkin growing in my “yard”!

For Jack, everything is business as usual.

I would love to hear what you’re grateful for. Happy Sunday.

One & Done Sunday #24

Hey. It’s One and Done Sunday. One picture, and five links that are worth your time.

It’s been very quiet around here this weekend. The men were away on a Scouts campout and #1 was gone as well. I let everybody else sleep in , including the dogs. The TV wasn’t on. I didn’t have to break up any fights.

Nobody complains while they’re asleep.

CC and #5 returned from their trip just a while ago. Apparently CC indoctrinated #5 into the family mantra this weekend (Life grades on a curve, in case you were wondering).

#5: Hey, you know what Dad told me about bears?

Me: What?

#5: He said you don’t have to run faster than the bear. You just have to run faster than the other campers.

Words to live by.

Here’s your picture. We have two utility cars: a mini van and one of those sedans that is so nondescript I can only find it in a parking lot by our license plate. Then there’s Miss Lucy, my ’66 Mustang convertible. I drive her whenever I can. There are only two situations in which I prefer not to drive her. One is rain.

The other is when I have to do the Costco run.

Now for your links.

So this dude skydived (skydove?) from space last Sunday. For reasons I can’t quite fathom, there are people arguing about it. One side accuses it of being irrelevant while we live in a world with all these basic human rights violations; another side claims superiority for science while blaming all human rights violations on religion. I would like to present all of these people with a Douchebag award for making a political issue out of skydiving. From space.

Look, some people are really good at stopping crimes against humanity. Other people are really good at jumping from outer-freaking-space with a parachute. Both are heroes. Both demand balls of steel.

Felix Baumgartner has them. This link has some great pictures, plus a couple videos including the entire thing condensed into a minute and a half. I think it’s amazing. The Blaze: Felix Baumgartner’s Historic Red Bull Stratos Skydive.

Yeah, Red Bull. They financed the whole thing. Talk about taking marketing to new heights. . .

Speaking of marketing, you may have seen Dove’s Real Beauty campaign. You may have wondered how real it is. Here’s a real person I know writing a real story on her very real blog as part of it. It’s on her teenage girls and self-esteem: Inspiring Beauty at Life Well Blended.

Funny. The debate, in stills, with irrelevant but oh-so-fitting captions from The Good Greatsby: The Presidential Debate on Mute.

I loved this post from Growing Grace Farms: Lessons Learned: Farming Boots and Defining Ourselves.

I love these pictures. The Full Punch: 20 Truly Weird But Awesome Photos.

Happy Sunday.

Milkshakes

We got Jack and Casey as puppies when they were seven weeks old.

They spent a lot of time in the kitchen because it was the only room we could completely make safe and secure. Plus it had a tile floor for easy cleanup, if you know what I mean. We gradually enlarged their inside world by blocking off larger sections of the house for them to explore while we were with them.

One night I was home with the kids and we had movie night. I made popcorn and milkshakes. I don’t remember what we were watching. The puppies were sniffing around the living room. At that time, they still fit under most of the furniture so there was a lot for them to check out. We had a green trunk that we used as a coffee table. Some of us set our milkshakes upon it.

The thing about puppies, unlike kittens, is that they’re not normally quiet. Stealth is a quality dogs generally lack. I rely on my hearing more than anything to make sure my dogs aren’t getting into something they’re not supposed to. It’s not rocket science; even small dogs lumber.

But this night? My puppies were ninjas.

I got up to go back into the kitchen and turned around. There, on the trunk directly behind me, was a heavy glass that had formerly contained a milkshake, lying on its side. The contents spilled across the trunk and two puppies were silently slurping up the dregs. Chocolate, of course.

This was the first of many times to come where we were hipped to the teamwork that is possible between a couple of puggles that bonded in the womb.

twins — The only two in the litter. Can you tell?

In my mind, I picture Casey getting Jack to crouch down while she tipped the glass over onto him so that it didn’t crash. Then licking up any milkshake that spilled on his back. It sounds like something she’d do.

I can only imagine what it must be like to have twin humans.