Buh Bye Irma!

We know we're fortunate to come out as we did.  Yard damage, soupy lawn, fallen trees (7 in total, one of which had us barricaded into the house and my husband had to chainsaw us out), screen cage damage to the patio, no cell reception and this is one of my first opportunities to use the work computer for personal reasons (man, it feels good to be on line again).  We've been out of power since Saturday 9/9 @ noon (much earlier than expected!).  We are grateful.  But...let's get some truth up in dis b*tch, k?  I am SICK of camping.  Here's what no one told me about the aftermath of a powerful storm (how have I lived here my whole life and not known these things?!):

INSECTS! They're everywhere! We are bitten up head to toe, including our face, through our clothes and bug spray doesn't matter. They've been pushed from their homes, their ticked off and they're aggressive.  We don't stand still for any amount of time or we become a meal for critters less than a cm long.  

Food consumption!  Even though we're not a stress eaters, we have continuously laid out large quantities of food (we hosted a Hurricane safe house) just because we're trying to keep folks distracted and calm, like everything's normal.  Sure, we always grill up 16 burgers every two hours.  

SMELLS IN THE AIR!  Ugh. The water & wind wreak so much havoc, there's an odd smell in the air everywhere.  It's like the whole city needs a Febreze douche. 

Grooming!  There's so many other things taking priority. Next thing I  know I've got talons, a caterpillar eye brow, I can do some light sanding with my prickly leg hair and I have arm pit hair I can braid.  Shoot, at this point, I can help those power line workers. Stand aside fellas, I don't need special spike boots for climbing, I can just whip off my socks and toggle up that pole with me bare feet.  ROAR!  (I dunno...I just felt like belting out a Tarzan call of the wild).

Aches! Our feet throb and our body's ache from non stop repetitive motions. Squat, lift, thrust, drag, heave-ho.

Strength!  I had adrenaline pre storm and was able to move things like they weigh nothing. Post storm, the adrenaline fades and now I'm wondering how I moved my parents furniture by myself.  The hubby would have helped but he was in Texas helping clean up after Hurricane Harvey.  

White noise!  I am so sick of the noise of generators. Oh I'm thankful our fridge is staying cold, but I can't wait for peace & quiet.  Up and down our road, all I hear are generators.  LOUD generators.  How and why are they so loud?!  What does the TECO energy plant sound like, I wonder?

Sleep!  What sleep?  The heat gives me restless sleep, prompting weird dreams in addition to my body doesn't recuperate at the normal rate.  I actually feel myself aging.

TV!  I miss falling asleep to a TV...the ambient sounds and light emissions.  I miss turning off my brain and watching something on the boob tube.  Oh how I miss it.

Pitch blackness!  After 7:30pm, it's pitch black.  There's no ritual to wind down.  I'm wide awake, but not much we can do in the blackness.  We want to conserve flashlight battery, so we only use them for essential stuff.  We can play a game on our phones for a minute, but.....

Cell phones!  Our phone batteries constantly die from checking in with people so we never really have the opp to use it to check news or stay in touch with what's going on around us (ie when will the grocery store get a shipment of food, what's the power situation, when will the pumps get gas again).  Our reception is intermittent at best adding to the obstacles in normalcy.

Your car is a tool!  Thank goodness our vehicles didn't drown.  We  spend a lot of time in our car for air conditioning, phone charging & trying to keep the generator going.

Water conservation!  We have become super clever at water conservation and getting clean.

Doggie adventures!  Our dog finds weird new things to check out, consume and yes...puke it all back up.

The grill!  OMG, can't believe I'm saying this. We are tired of cooking out. I freakin want pasta, cereal, yogurt.

Brain fog! We're running on empty so are brain can't seem to get simple stuff right. They say 6 and I keep writing S. They correct me several times and each time I say oh yeah, sorry about that...S, it's S. NO NO NO, it's a 6! My license plate is j06....6....6....6, NOT S! ok ok, I got this....J...0..."S"...then what? I look up to see they are writing it down themselves In font size I could see from New Jersey.

Issue management!  I never realized how many things will become an issue. Wet clothes, wet towels from mopping up water damage, melting food, perishable food, trash management, how to clean up our bathroom after our guest who can't control their bowels or bladder bombed the f*k out of it, without running water.  Oh I managed, but it sucked.  I don't enjoy picking up my doggie princess' poop, I don't want to pick up someone else's.

Skin issues!  Constant labor and sweating....then sleeping in heat, no running water.  We never really get clean.  Not only are our faces breaking out, but our backs, too.  

Power withdrawal!  We look forward to power for many reasons, but mostly we can't wait to steam clean our whole house.  I an't wait to wash every single thing we own.

Moodiness!  People are grumpy over silly things.  I'm not so much grumpy as I'm not myself.  I'm super thankful and I keep coming back to that.

Before the preachers come out, let me remind you, it's relative.  Our experiences are relative to the world we know.  I'm appreciative, grateful, thankful, all of the above.  I'm not saying we deserve more empathy than Key West, Naples, Ft Myers, Miami.  Hell, I'm not even saying we deserve equal empathy.  I'm only sharing our experiences, how we've been negatively impacted and how we are directly affected.  I'm not implying our lives are bad.  We are ok.  Our property will be ok.  Life will resume.  You don't tell a 7 year old when they fall off their bike "suck it up kid, life will get worse than this!".  You acknowledge in their life so far, this experience was crummy.  Your first skinned knee or busted lip sucks.  It's ok to acknowledge that.  Right?!  Well, this was OUR first skinned knee and busted lip, that's all.  We're not assholes.  It's relative.