Another Storm Cometh

I got back home from Florida a week ago, and I am just now getting back to a normal life and schedule--including posting! When I arrived home (7 pm last Thursday), there were so many trees down on our drive that Dave couldn't pick me up at the airport. The Uber driver even had difficulty getting me home as one of the main highways on the way home was closed due to downed power lines. At home the power had been out since 7:30 am. It was dark, but not too cold as Dave had a fire going. He had done some fancy cooking over the fire when the poower was out the night before (photos in the last post), and I continued the trend by toasting myself a bagel. Best bagel I ever ate--smokey, everything-bagel, and melty cream cheese.

Friday dawned still cold, but no longer freezing, and the last of the ice melted off the ground during the day. Dave was resigned to not being able to get to the office, and we hunkered down by the fire. I wore my Minus33 long underwear, jeans, a t-shirt, and a sweater. Zaga came over and I boiled water and heated cream on the fire for French press coffee. It was surprisingly easy and good--albeit the pan of water kept tipping and spilling into the fire when the logs moved...

When I went outdoors I layered up with a sweater vest, a hat, and combo mittens/fingerless gloves. This Montana girl was not daunted! (It actually felt kind of wimpy out for so much devastation and lingering problems--the power outage). In the afternoon an enterprising crew from a tree company came t the door and bid on removing all our downed trees. We took their bid, as did Dan and Zaga next door. They cleared our drive, vowed to come back the next day, and we haven't seen them since. Fortunately no money has changed hands and we can get a car down the drive, so we can wait.

Like other preppers (in our case posters), we went to Walmart that afternoon for supplies, and got candles (not regular ones as they were sold out, but they had a lot of the tall glass religious ones for $1.57 each--sweet!), a grill rack to put in the fireplace to cook over, and a cast-iron griddle to cook grilled cheese sandwiches on over the fire for dinner. 

That evening we lit every pillar candle I ever bought in our married life as well as the new glass-jar ones and some beeswax advent tapers I found from years ago. I thought I had finally thrown all the old pillars away last fall as they were very dusty and we hadn't lit them in YEARS. I was glad to find I hadn't gotten around to it. Proof positive that as soon as you throw something out, you are going to need it. I am never throwing anything away again. Then we moved the games table over in front of the fire and spent the evening playing Terraforming Mars. One game lasts a few hours, and we ended up going through quite a few of the beeswax advent tapers. Pro tip: Take a plate, melt the bottoms of several little advent tapers. and stick them to the plate for a great improve candelabra.

When we finally went to bed (the cotton sheets under a down comforter are FREEZING in a cold room!), we made bets as to when the power would come back on. Dave said Saturday afternoon, and I was sure it wouldn't be till Monday morning. We were both wrong as it was back by Saturday morning. We were lucky. We were only without power for three days. There are still 451 active outages in Austin with over 2,000 people affected a week after the outage started. Austin Energy hopes to have all power restored by Sunday the 12th. In the meantime, flood warnings and thunderstorms today. Definitely time to look into a way to flip our solar over from the grid to us so we can access it during an outage.

Girding My Loins to Arrive Home to Icemageddon

Just finished a Sweetwater beer and a burger in the Atlanta airport, and am now on the plane and charging every device I have with me--laptop, iPad, iPhone, Muse meditation device. I even bought a big laptop charging battery in the airport and am charging it for Dave. We are still without power at home with no idea of when it might be restored. I also heard from both Dave and Zaga that we lost a lot of oak trees from ice and breakage. As I understand it,  there are so many trees down in our drive now that Dave can't get down it with a vehicle until I do 2-3 days of chainsawing. Guess I'll be Ubering home from the airport. 

The pictures are courtesy of Dave, who cooked merguez sausage and leftover golden potatoes in the fireplace tonight. I am convinced he did it as much for experience points as for hunger. Thank heaven we got that half cord of wood earlier in the winter. Now if we just had a generator or a way to switch our solar from the grid to our own use when the power is out...

This is the last time I am caught by stupid winter in Austin. I am going into full-on prepper mode, and will be ready for power outages with their dark, and cold, and meat-ruining abilities next year. I am afraid to know the current state of the meat in the freezer (all of the wild game and other exotic meat I got Dave for his birthday). We can't even get to the store to buy a bunch of bags of ice to throw in there to keep it cold. Never again. We have solar that produces 25-115 kWh of electricity a day--all of which is dumped when the power goes out and the grid is turned off. With the current state of batteries, there is no way to store enough to run the house, but we could go to emergency rationing at night, and probably get by during the day. 

Good-bye Florida Sun, Hello Austin Ice

My time in Florida comes to an end tomorrow. We left the condo in Cedar Key and did a little shopping in Ocala (bead store and quilt store), before splitting up and heading back to our respective lives. I drove to Sarasota to deliver J's car to her, and to meet the boyfriend and have dinner with the two of them. It has been a bittersweet day: I miss Dave, Rémy, and the cats, but the weather here has been particularly fine and my only responsibilities have been to sleep, eat, craft, meditate, do yoga, and be somewhat social. Of course, now that I am not gainfully employed, most of my days may end up being like that! 

Cedar Key had a lovely small-town vibe, and  was relatively empty of tourists. Maybe the majority of the "locals" were snowbirds, but at this time of year there weren't gaggles of families with whiny, sticky, sunburned children clogging everything up. It was refreshing to see a median age of (I'd guess) 65. Or maybe I mean average age... Bah. It's math, and Dave's not here so it'll just be whatever I want it to be. Anyway, they were comfortably rowdy, rumpled, grizzled and grey-haired--and that was just the women! The sunsets could not be beat, and the stillness refreshed my soul.

It was good to spend time with my friends on the annual trip--and I picked a particularly auspicious time to be gone as it's in the 70's and sunny here, while it's freezing ice, downed tree limbs, and electrical outages in Austin! I'm glad my flight tomorrow isn't due in till late--hopefully everything will have had a chance to melt and Dave will have been able to clear the driveway of downed tree limbs. Last night for our farewell dinner we went to the Big Deck Raw Bar & Grill for dinner and some stompin' good live  music (really. everyone was stomping). They had an amaaaazing selection of bourbon, and I ended dinner with a shot of Blanton's, ice on the side. There were only two women working the front of the house and one cook in the back, and it was PACKED). The one who waited on us as we sat at the bar--the only available seats in the place--was VERY generous with her pour... I ended up carrying some of it home there was so much.

In line with being a newly poor, unemployed person, I am staying at a motel called the "Golden Host Resort" in Sarasota. It is also close to Ringling so will be easy to have lunch with J before heading to the airport.

It is cutie-patootie and claims to house Florida's oldest Tiki Bar, the Bahi Hut. It also has a saltwater pool, drag bingo on Sunday, and other scintillating activities throughout the week. It looks to be a 1950's/60's originally side-of-the-highway-now-in-town motel, with a really spiffy remodel. The shower floor is a beautiful pebble mosaic, the fridge and microwave are 1960's baby blue replicas, and the furniture (chair and tables) is Jetson's chic. Seems clean, and has a comfortable bed--what more could I ask? And I might need to stay an extra day if the weather in Austin continues to suck. 

Okay, off to meditate before heading to dinner. Cute as the room is, I don't think I'll get down on the floor--even with my mat--to do yoga.