I am writing this on a plane from San Antonio to Ontario, via Phoenix Front row, no one next to me, legs on the little leather wall that separates the seats from the kitchen. Just want to make sure you all have a proper picture of the current situation. 48 hours ago I was sitting in my living room watching 90210 and eating ice cream. 36 hours ago I was in the midst of a chaotic lunch decision between BBQ and some sort of sketchy buffet (the BBQ won). 24 hours ago I was boarding up Jessica’s house. Funny how things can change so quickly. So, let me go back to yesterday afternoon. 4pm. Veronica asks me to pick up her son from school after she gets sucked into a meeting. Not a problem. I pick up Mason, drive through Jack in the Box to get him a snack (yea, I am going to be a great mom), and then head over to his sister’s school to meet Veronica for the child handoff. We listed to the XM radio station talking about Ike. They are not saying much, but they are saying that it is taking a more northerly route, instead of going through Corpus Christi, it is turning up the coast. Ok, so, probably we won’t have work on Friday. Cool, I don’t really remember the last time I have worked a full week anyway, so why start now. I head home, and then it hits me that I won’t be able to fly of Houston on Friday morning for Kiyomi’s bachelorette weekend. Jessica and I discuss it and I decide to try and fly out of San Antonio. This means I have to get to San Antonio first. This is about the time the community finally decides to take notice that a large storm could very possibly make landfall a lot closer than we want it to. Voluntary evacuations of Galveston County. Right, my county. This is quite different than the California version of a natural disaster. I have warning. And voluntary? Seriously. Yea, I am volunteering. So, Jessica and I have a little planning session, and decide to board up tonight and then reevaluate. We start with her house. Jessica is the size of my left calf, so I am pretty sure this is going to be interesting. Her husband is out of town (apparently mine is too) so we are on our own. We recruit Jessi from down the street and start her backyard. Note to self, always label your boards. After re-measuring her windows to determine which board goes where, we get most of them up and good to go. Jessi gets his butt kicked on the top story, so now we are just leaving it up to luck that nothing flies at those windows. At this point, we have all stepped in ant hills, been bitten by multiple mosquitoes, and are hungry. 9pm. Lovely. Jessi goes back to do his boards, we go to eat (inhale) some food, and then onto my house. While eating, we see the storm has now turned again, and is basically coming right at us. Perfect. We get to my house and pull out my newly cut boards. The boards that are EXACTLY the size of my window cutouts. This makes adding the clips extremely difficult. Out comes the hand saw. Thanks dad, I NEVER thought I would use that thing. Jessica has her doubts but I made it work. I, of course, can barely move my arms today, but we got most of the boards up, and only broke one window. Eventually Dawn called and volunteered her husband, the fire marshall (yup, look at my high up connections) to finish my boards in the morning if we will leave with her tonight. Done.
11:30pm. Jessica goes home, I shower and “pack” (throw all clean laundry into a bag and hope for the best), pack the cats up (they are like toddlers with the amount of crap they require), and send an email to the boss telling her I am leaving. Jessica comes back at 12:30am, and the chaos begins. I pile all my important papers, my bag, the 2 cat carriers (minus the cats, who are we kidding, those 2 are so spoiled, they won’t actually go in the carriers), their litter box, today, food, and blanket into the back seat. Then I pile them in with me. Yea, right, I forgot to mention that Simba, Jessica’s car, is on her lap. And he HATES other cats. So begins the hissing and meowing. We make it as far as the gas station before Tony throws up. Perfect. We stop so I can plunge my now dirty hand (yup, i caught it) into the car wash solution at the local Shell station (note to self, do not wash windscreen at that station), and then I realize my cell phone is still on my couch. Perfect. We back track with more meowing, and I move to the back seat with the cats, put a pillow barrier up to block the cat vision, and sit back to relax. And Tony throws up again. This time, there is no gas station. 3 hour drive. I just accept a dirty hand. Eventually we get onto the highway. Then Simba decides he is going to poop. Not in the little box, but in the seat. I probably shouldn’t put this in writing, but I can now say I have thrown poop out of a moving vehicle on the 45. Didn’t realize it would actually hit Dawn’ car, but it in fact did. =). So, eventually we got going, the cats settled down (after each pooped, in the litter box this time), and we got out of Houston. Jessica and I made the trip mostly in silence, to avoid waking up the animals. This is when i announced I was never having children (sorry Mom). There is just no way. This situation is stressful enough with cats, kids must be 10 times worse. And actually, my 2 were very well behaved once we got going, Molly slept in the litter box for part of the trip, and they both slept in the basket for a while, taking turns on my lap, purring and generally enjoying the attention.
So, 4:15am, we made it to the lake house in Canyon Lake, just outside of San Antonio. (ok, let me just update you on my location. Still on the plane. Guy next to me on third G&T. I need to fly more, he has free coupons and I am pretty sure is getting drunk on this flight). So, we arrive, Simba stops meowing as he is released. I carry my two into the house, up the stairs and into their room. They seem none too bothered and explore quickly. Little box arrives, food and water are put down, and they are happy. May as well be at home, apparently, as Molly quickly shoves litter over the sides of the box. Pretty typical. I throw out some toys, but they are more excited about the cords on the blinds. Also typical. We are wound up, but come down quickly and climb into bed. I think I fell asleep to the news at 5:30am, as they report mandatory evacuation of Galveston. Perfect. Slept until 10, when Molly knocked off the remote from the window sill in an attempt to climb the cable cord to the TV. Tony attacked my feet 20 minutes later, and after once final attempt, I woke up to a cat paw in my hair at about 11am. I knew there was a reason they don’t sleep with me normally. Checked out the news. They had mandatory evacuations of all the neighborhoods east of mine to the water. NASA was closing at noon, although the zip code it sits in was put under mandatory evacuations at 7am that morning. I am pretty sure no one cared if I came to work or not. Today was sort of a twilight zone, we just watched the news and Family Feud, ate, and checked the news. Took a short nap and then showered before heading out to the airport. My cats are now in the hands of Jessica, Dawn and Caroline (who took four hours to get to the house earlier today). Jessica’s sister was on the road when I left them, going on hour 5, and still a couple of hours away. Apparently we just missed the traffic chaos. I am fighting the guilt of leaving the little cats, but I think it is better for them without me away from Houston than left in my house during the storm. They have each other and 6 year old Jack to play with, so I think they will be fine. I hope they don’t pee on anything. Jessica will never forgive me....
Anyway, so now I am on my way to celebrate one of Kiyomi’s last weekends as a single woman. It seems like each time I fly to California something happens, so I was asked to quit traveling today. I might actually stop, I am tired of the anxiety. Hopefully I can let it go and actually realize there is nothing I can do about it, and just enjoy some sun and friends. We will see....pictures to follow of the Palm Spring pool we will be at all day Saturday.
Thanks for all the phone calls and emails, now you can feel like you went through it with me. =)