The Morning After

Well, Irene was as scary as all get out, but we came through it with no damage to life or property, which is awesome.  Barney may be suffering from PTSD (perhaps I am too), and it was quite an adventure.

We decided against leaving, despite my parents' "invitation" (I think they were using Irene as an excuse to see Elliott).  Around 10pm on Saturday, I deeply regretted that decision.  The lights in our parking lot were out, so we couldn't see what was going on.  Our electricity stayed on (thank God), so at least we had the internet for information.  At about quarter to 2, just as I was drifting off to sleep in the living room, a strange alarm started sounding.  I woke Jason, who grabbed Elliott, and I attempted to wrangle Barney into his carrier, with no success.  Jason and I switched "dependents," and I got Elliott into his car seat.  I put my shoes on, grabbed the car keys and prepared to leave.  But hold on...what is this alarm for?  We had already experienced tornado warnings, so do we go to the basement, or was this flooding, in which case we should probably just chill on the 2nd floor.  Or, perhaps, was it a fire and if so, where do we go in this storm during a fire?  I looked out in the hall.  No one was leaving their apartments.  Hmm.  Jason finally got Barney into the carrier, and we pondered our next move.  Jason ran down to the lobby to see if anyone was down there and had more info.  He returned with the report: there was one guy downstairs just as confused as we were.  We headed back to the lobby, evac bag, baby, cat, and diaper bag in tow.  We were totally prepared to leave at any moment because of the storm.  After about 10 minutes in the lobby, where about 3 more sleepy people joined us, the alarm went off.  The firemen, who responded to the alarm, believed it was tripped by the weather.  Great.  So much for sleep.

We returned to our apartment, frazzled and frightened.  Barney was happy the alarm was no longer sounding and clung to us all night (because that earthquake wasn't enough).  Elliott basically slept through the entire event, which was amazing considering how loud it was.  He heard everything, but was just to sleepy to care.  Jason and I stayed up until about 4, when the storm died down.  I kept waking up, believing I was hearing the storm gear up again, but fortunately it never did.  In the light of day, we saw the one casualty of the storm: Evil Tree.  In April, my parents' car was totaled by a huge branch of a dead tree in our apartment complex during a severe storm.  It was our very first night in the apartment, as they were visiting to help us move.  On Saturday, Irene took care of Evil Tree and he is no more.

Good riddance, Evil Tree.

By Wednesday, we should be getting to our new fall schedule.  La Salle cancelled classes for Monday and Tuesday, so I won't go back to work until Wednesday.  Holy cow, what a week.

- I'm peachy.