wind, rain and clam chowder

Thursday afternoon, someone unzipped Seattle's skies, and out fell seas of water.

Although Seattle is known for rain, it doesn't really rain here. What it does do is sprinkle, drizzle, mist and shower. Most of us don't even own umbrellas. So when this drenching started, Audrey (my assistant) and I leapt from our chairs to watch the violent waterfalls already cascading from the roof. It was shocking.

A few hours later, I sat on my sofa in the dark, surrounded by candles and afghans, trying not to lose a little bit of my mind. For 6 hours the wind howled and bullied and occasionally screamed, sending thuds to my roof and siding and windows and I just wanted it to be over! I do not know how anyone stays sane through a hurricane, I really don't. I was, in a word, terrified.

Around 3:30 in the morning, the monster outside my window calmed down enough that I finally had the courage to make the trek down my hall (a bee-line toward 6 of the largest fir trees in my yard) climb into bed and fitfully sleep.

Daylight brought relief...since I saw that other than no power, there was no damage. Certainly nothing like these poor souls had...

My yard was a mess of branches and shingles (not from my roof!) but that was it. I cleared off the bigger branches and made some phone calls. No one I knew had power in the entire greater Seattle area except my son's group home! Sensing it would be days before power would be restored, and being a woman too old and too smart to think that suffering does anything except make you suffer, I packed a tote and high-tailed it into the business center of town where some of the lights were back on. The Comfort Inn had power! And they had rooms!

I checked in, chatted with other cold souls in the lobby about where to get hot coffee and hot food, settled into my 2-queen bed room, then headed out again in search of something steaming and soothing, which I found at Coco's. They'd just had their power restored and opened a few minutes before I pulled up. Hot coffee and hot clam chowder and toasted garlic bread made absolutely everything all right again.

All told, over a million homes and businesses lost power in greater Seattle. I spent 3 nights at my hotel-home away from home, (my daughter and boyfriend joined me Saturday night, since they still have no power!) but now I am back home and I have power and heat and the internet and a TV and a microwave and an oven and a garage door opener and a printer and a DVD player and Christmas lights and normal is normal again. I didn't lose a thing in the fridge or freezer, since the house temp dropped into the 30's. I got to spend a couple of days with my daughter and we had fun playing cards using cough drops as poker chips, eating through a box of chocolates we treated ourselves to (she likes milk, I like dark) and just hanging out.

I am glad it is over. I did learn one thing, though. I've decided it's time to grow up some and make myself, for the first time, an emergency backpack to keep in the hall closet. Water, flashlight, bandaids, candy bars, nuts, batteries and phone numbers. I realized that without the internet, I am completely cut off. I don't keep a phone book around, and I had to call my sister in Eugene to have her look up the Comfort Inn phone number. And without my cell phone, I know no phone numbers...not even my daughter's!!! It's pretty stupid to let a little device like a cell phone be your brain...

So far, we've had the worst winter we've had in forever....and it's not even winter yet!