The wait

So far the wait up to the hurricane has been weird.

We don't watch tv enough to fork out the money each month to pay for cable or satellite and our bunny ears pretty much don't work here so we just don't watch tv. The downside to that is that I never get to watch the news anymore. I found out that we were possibly going to be hit by the hurricane through facebook. But from what I read about a week ago it wasn't a sure thing, and then through out the week I caught conversations of it here and there, but nothing to make me to worried. I have a semi decent food storage and emergency supplies so I wasn't anxious.

So it kind of threw me off Friday morning as Paul and I were playing at a cloud free, hot park to get a text from my Aunt asking if we were evacuating. I replied "Not that I know of. Are other places"? And I proceeded to learn that a few places already were. Hum I thought. My aunt recommended stocking up on water bottles. I now felt my first and only glimpse of 'hum, maybe this is going to be a big deal. Maybe I should be worried." But as the day went on and we started mingling with out friends at the park (yes, that's right people. Paul and I have made quite a few friends at the park. Yay! Pretty much all of them are Russian and speak Russian to their kids and stuff, but I know enough Russian to speak to the kiddies and the mom's know enough English to speak to me. :) We have even set up a few play dates. I am supper excited seeing how most of my friends from church live to far away for everyday visits. :( ) As I was saying we started chatting and from what I heard it wasn't going to be to big of a deal.

During Paul's afternoon nap I dug through the big garbage bin I have been tossing all of our recyclables until I am no longer to lazy to go empty it into the correct bins outside. (It's not gross stinky stuff, so don't judge.) I had honestly been planning on emptying it out that very day, so it was nice and full. I ended up with two milk jugs, five large Costco size juice cartons, and a Pepsi bottle. I thoroughly washed them all out and they are now sitting filled with water. (I also plan on filling my tub tonight in case we do lose water access I will have washing water and water to flush my toilet so that my prized bottles can be used solely for drinking).

After Paul woke up we went to the store and add a few things to our already full produce drawer in the fridge. I wasn't worried at all at this point now that I had my water jugs. And thank heavens that I had not taken out my recyclables because a jug of water cost TWO dollars. Crazy!

We came home and I didn't even seriously think about it again until Anton got home from work and we decided that we wanted some cherry's after dinner. Um, it was crazy at the markets! Just to get my cherries I had to stand in a line that wrapped all the way around the store (and it was one of the larger ones in my area), and there were two of them. It was a mad house. The sidewalks were packed! We stopped in at one of the 99cent stores to get a mop bucket and it was full of people purchasing water bottles, candles, matches, duck tape, and batteries.

Today the streets were oddly quiet. There were very few people out and about this morning even though there wasn't much rain and there weren't hardly any cars on the streets. We had a pretty good morning, but I knew from the get go that being locked up for a few days was not going to brood well. Paul was having a grand ol' time with Papa home, but Anton who was trying to get some work and studding done after playing with him for a few hours this morning started to get irritable, not to mention Paul pooped and peed on the floor (at separate times, so it was two messes to clean up) and then dumped Anton's glass of milk on the rug, all over his clean clothes and Anton's notebook.

I decided that it would no longer be conducive to our happy family to be locked up with each other any longer. So I popped Paul in the stroller, went to the store and bought a clear, plastic sheild thing to go over the stroller and Paul and I walked to the park (the one up the road, not the one by the water :)). It actually wasn't raining on our way there so we got to enjoy the breeze, even though you could have cut the humidity with a knife. We got to play at the park for roughly forty five minutes before it started to rain and we had to head back home. The cover thing worked great! We took our time on our mile walk back home.

Anton and I collaborated on cooking dinner tonight and it turned out delicious. Paul went to bed half an hour early and now we are sitting with the patter of rain outside our windows. Peaceful, yet out of place in our neighborhood. I mentioned to Anton that I felt like we were being held hostage and he agreed. We'll just have to wait until tomorrow when the big storm hits us and it will probably fell closer to a quarantine. Church has been canceled. The public transportation has been closed down. I got a notice from the bank letting us know that they were closing down their buildings. And on our walk today Paul and I witnessed a few of the stores in our neighborhood boarding up their windows. We are going into hiding.