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09/20/2003 Entry: "Isabel's Gone, and Thank God" Well, it's over and blown off. After having my ankle up in a brace, I had to get it all bent up again on Thursday as I hurriedly grabbed anything I thought would fly into my house or a neighbor's torso that I could, and either put it in my shed or in my home. They canceled school, the government, all Metro, and eventually my workplace sent all "non-essential" people home. After we tied everything down, we watched wave after wave of wind and rain go by, each worse than the previous wave. We actually had power until 9:45, although it went off an on a lot toward the end. Then the power went out for good. While we had power though, we sat in our rec room (near the brick chimney), and watched the news channels for the latest updates. When it finally scared us to the point we couldn't watch anymore, we watched "The Two Towers," and "Animal House," on DVD. Halfway through Animal House (at the Delta Tau Xi hearing scene) is when the power went down for good. Then it was dead quiet inside... but the outside we listened to the wind howl, interruped by flashes of light, banging noises, and the sound of buckets of rain poruing on our windows. The Hello Kitty radio worked great, but the radio channels were unhelpful except for gratuitous closings announcements. We sat in the rec room, with candles, even though everyone on the news told us over and over again not to use candles because of fire. Since the only gas we use was to our hot water heater far away, and we never smelled a gas leak, we thought we were okay. Besides, I learned at an early age (not by bad experience, but by lesson) never to leave an open flame unattended. So nothing bad came of our candle use, except we discovered reading by candle is nigh impossible. Also, we rediscovered having no power sucks. It wasn't a surprise, but it brought back bad memories of childhood where my father vacationed on the yacht (no power except when generator was on, and that was rare), and when I was a kid, one of my "punishments" was my all my electrical power was cut off from my room for up to a week. Darkness. Humidity. It sucks. Of course, it could have been worse. It could have been really hot or really cold. Any by 8:03 pm, less than 23 hours later, we had power back on. Phone and cable is still sporadic. Some calls come in, some calls do not. The total damage is slight, and we fared a lot better than our neighbors. We lost some siding and some refrigerated food, but no major calamities. Some lost a lot of siding, parts of their roof, and of course, lots and lots of downed branches and trees. There were also small fires here and there from downed power lines and auto accidents. Oh, and my arthritis and sinus hurt like a mofo, but that's to be expected from this weather. As I type this, my painkiller are taking effect, so I'll have more later when I am more coherent. But I wanted to tell everyone we are okay.