It seems like lately the crazies are coming out of the woodwork. Other than reading my blog, they mostly leave me alone. But unfortunately for a few friends of mine, they aren’t so lucky. I know an uncanny number of people who have stalkers in their lives. Is that weird? It’s a strange new age, friends!
Anyway the topic is restraining orders, also known as personal protective orders. Unfortunately I know more about them than I wish I knew. Tony and I once had to delve quite deeply into the process for a creepy family member who was literally stalking our kids, showing up unannounced at family events and school activities and doing other creepy things despite promising more than once that it would not happen. A few friends in Michigan needed restraining orders to protect against crazies too. It’s an odd topic to come up in conversation but it did.
As it turns out, there is no way to really protect yourself from a crazy mo-fo unless that crazy mo-fo is a family member. Weird, right? I mean say some crazy-ass b*tch who you work with or go to school with or something starts to get all obsessed with you and your life in a stalkerish sort of way and gives you reason to believe that your family or even yourself may be at risk. Say she won’t stop harassing you or sending threats through other students or co-workers? Can you file a restraining order? Apparently not!
It’s a good thing my husband works from home. At least then if the crazy-ass bitch who shares his office makes threats (which you know totally happens here! ha), he can file the PPO because he’s married to me! Hahahaha. I better delete this before he gets any smart ideas. Because actually I’m a total stalker and never leave that poor man alone!
I jest, I know. It never ceases to amaze me how different the laws are here in Texas as compared to most other states. Sometimes, such as in the case of domestic adoptions where regulations are stricter than many other states, this is an excellent thing. Sometimes, though, the personal freedoms just blow my mind. Like when you can shoot up a dude for trespassing . or how people are apparently permitted to ride in the back of pickup trucks - no seat belts. No seats. No windows. No helmets. Just all out there waiting for a nice strong slam on the breaks to be shot all up to heaven.
So now don’t you feel smarter for reading this post? Ha. I aim to please.
I’ve been trying to type up our Ike experiences for several days but all the posts are so long and lame and boring and sound like this “trees down, disaster, apocalyptic, so sad, so fortunate, yes I know, blah blah blah”. I’ve already twittered the relevant details and I think they really tell the story in simple one-liners so if you want to know what happened and you weren’t following along on the twitter feed, you can go read it now.
Ok so that said, here’s what I want to say. Hurricanes are an act of nature. I do not believe they are an act of God. I do not believe that if God exists that s/he would seek vengeance on any population for any reason through hurricanes, flooding or tornadoes. But even more, I do not believe when these horrific acts of nature occur that some people were spared more because they prayed harder or because they had more people praying for them. Not only do I not believe it but it makes me downright furious when I hear it. What it says to me is that these people believe in a God who would punish those who have fewer people praying for them by tearing apart their lives with flooding and property damage or loss. Yet over and over and over I have read and heard and been told about how God has worked (selective) miracles in some people’s yards and neighborhoods (while completely trashing others regardless of their religious convictions or prayer chains). WTF people?!?! I can agree to disagree if people want to think that hurricanes are God’s warning to the world. But when they start getting personal and actually suggesting it was God’s Will that sent a tree through the house to kill a sleeping woman up the road or that it was God’s Will that saved her neighbor from a similar fate because they had family praying for them all over the country….well that is some sort of screwed up God to believe in, if you ask me.
And another thing about God….those idiots who refused evacuation orders and proudly delcared that their God would protect them are downright fools. It has caused Tony and I to repeat this well-known joke over and over in the last week:
There was a man called Jim, who lived near a river.
Jim was a very religious man.
One day, the river rose over the banks and flooded the town, and Jim was forced to climb onto his porch roof.
While sitting there, a man in a boat comes along and tells Jim to get in the boat with him.
Jim says “No, that’s ok. God will take care of me.”
So, the man in the boat drives off.
The water rises, so Jim climbs onto his roof.
At that time, another boat comes along and the person in that one tells Jim to get in.
Jim replies, “No, that’s ok. God will take care of me.”
The person in the boat then leaves.
The water rises even more, and Jim climbs on his chimney.
Then a helicopter comes and lowers a ladder. The woman in the helicopter tells Jim to climb up the ladder and get in.
Jim tells her “That’s ok.”
The woman says “Are you sure?”
Jim says, “Yeah, I’m sure God will take care of me.
Finally, the water rises too high and Jim drowns.
Jim gets up to Heaven and is face-to-face with God.
Jim says to God “You told me you would take care of me! What happened?”
God replied “Well, I sent you two boats and a helicopter. What else did you want?”
Anyway, with that story in mind, we have and continue to feel very fortunate (even if our own particular spiritual ideology does not credit a higher power for our good fortune). I can’t fill my blog with whining or complaints. We had lots of advance warning, we had the funds to get out of dodge with our children and pets. We had beautiful weather to return home to. We had almost no damage to our home (what damage we had was fixed within 24 hours) and no damage at all to our personal property. The back yard is absolutely trashed but it is not our responsibility to clean it up. The pool service was out taking care of the pool before we could blink. Power was only out a short 4 days and we only were here for 2 of those days. Our yard will be cleaned up tomorrow. Our kids had a great time, the neighbors were all happy and friendly and the kids got a week off school with weather that was beautiful enough for them to enjoy it. I even felt a little (ok, a lot) guilty for not feeling more appreciative when our power finally went on because we knew that would mean saying goodbye to the busy neighborhood and friendly faces as everyone retreated back into homes, jobs and life.
I have a few pictures but I don’t think they really do the damage justice. You have to really drive around and see the destruction to appreciate its extent. But I’ll share what I have anyway. Full descriptions of each picture are at the flickr sight - you can read them by clicking on the picture.
The most frustrating thing about being home has been not knowing how to help. No one is allowed on Galveston island and I’m sure our beloved Bolivar is off limits too. I’ve been asking around and so far have come up dry. All this need and no clear way to help. I can’t even donate blood. Today at 11am we got a tip that there were 500 dogs and cats that were in dire straights at our animal shelter and we were there with crates and kennels by 11:30 ready to help. Can you believe that there were only a handful of animals left and empty kennels available?!?!? We left empty-handed! I’ve offered up my extra water, batteries, etc to anyone in the area who might need it but it seems like most have power and the rest have hit the road long ago to ride out the outages in comfier quarters.
I really hate that expression. It’s so dorky and what does it even mean? What’s a hunker and when did it become a verb?!?! And how do you use it in the present tense?
Well we aren’t. Hunkering down, I mean. Ike is heading right for our house and although we considered “hunkering down” for a brief time, the reality is that we are wimps. We don’t like power outages. We don’t like power outages in 95 degree Houston. We don’t like tornadoes. We don’t like losing sleep in order to keep our children safe from falling 100 year old trees. We are babies like that.
I started getting a little nervous this morning when local gas stations were already sold out of gas this morning. Luckily Tony filled our van up because it has only gotten worse throughout the day. We were able to get some water (which we’ll freeze and use to try to salvage our perishables while we’re gone) and flashlights but finally basically gave up on the flashlights - we’ll get this when we’re out of town. We aren’t really preparing to stay - just to deal with possible problems once we return home.
So even though we are not in a mandatory evacuation area and even though the news forecasters and officials are saying “hunker down” and “shelter in place”, we aren’t. Please don’t come loot us. We do have neighbors who are preparing to “hunker down”. And they have guns. And to ease my guilt, we are taking back roads all the way there to leave the highways open for others. Fair is fair.
So we are about 85 miles from the coast. Not close. But we’re still supposed to get a cat 2 hurricane blowing what looks like directly through our backyard with sustained winds up to 110 mph and tornadoes and 10″ or more of rain with flooding possible. I can’t even imagine what kind of damage those will experience who are on the coast. There are whispers that this one might be worse than Alicia although that means nothing to this Michigander.
Did I mention I also have a chest cold? A bad one? I’ve been in bed for a few days nursing my cold and really just want to sleep. I don’t want to travel or worry about the 3 cats, guinea pig or hedgehog we’ll leave behind or the possibility that our roof, fence, trampoline or play structure might be gone when we get back. But I think I’ll probably be more comfortable gone than here, especially if we lose power. So off we go.
I’ll be in touch, probably more than usual. Because what else will there be to do in a hotel in OKC for the next 3 days?
