Better Late

The problem that I have with writing a blog is that when things are happening I don't have time to write about them, then by the time I can sit down to write about them, they aren't always relevant anymore.

For example - Hurricane Irene. It's hard to believe it was only last weekend. That's right - it seems like it was ages ago, but it's only been eight days.

For all the carrying on in the media, you would have thought it was the end of the world coming, but for all the effort they put into getting everyone worked into a frenzy, it really wasn't all that bad. By the time it got here it was "only" a Category 1 hurricane. Still a hurricane - it could certainly kill you dead enough if you went wandering around outside in it, or, in the case of a man from East Islip - windsurfing. If you're nice and cozy inside your house with plenty of food and water and a basement full of camping gear, well then it's just some wind and rain.

Okay, a lot of wind and rain.

And honestly, a lot of water, once high tide hits.
These were actually taken from my front steps about 20-30 minutes before high tide, so the water actually rose a bit higher than this, but it cleared pretty quickly once the tide turned back out again. We ended up with about a foot or so of water in the basement, but since we've always lived in flood zones, we keep everything down there either up on shelves or in plastic bins, so we didn't lose very much.

I know you're worried, but it's okay - all the good yarn is kept upstairs on the second floor. There's plenty of yarn in the basement, but that's mostly acrylic. It's all safely stored in plastic bins, some of it in giant zippy bags inside plastic bins, so no yarn was harmed.

I actually felt a little bad after the storm. Aside from the inconvenience of having to get the water out of the basement (whatever wasn't cleared out once the outlet pipe for the sump pump wasn't underwater anymore, that is) we really weren't affected that badly. Some of my friends lost power and only got it back yesterday. Despite the flooding the longest we went without power was about 10-15 minutes and despite my fears to the contrary, Irene didn't even interfere with my vacation plans.

Which I'll tell you about tomorrow.