Drama and Gossip

So, contrary to what my absence may have implied, we survived Hurricane Irene! I have been on a slight hiatus due to my niece's visit. I was able to spend a lot of quality time with her, which I'm thankful for. We had a lot of fun, and I sent her off to Arkansas last night. She is able to say that she survived her first hurricane. Also, thanks to the continued lack of professionalism on Greyhound's behalf, Krista was able to stay two days and one night extra. She's still on the road, and should roll into Memphis sometime in the wee hours of the morning.
I have a little catching up to do, and it's 1700 right now, which means Derick will be walking through the door ready for supper any minute, so let's get to it!

HURRICANE IRENE

There's a lot to be said about her, but most of it just encompasses the drama prior to and after her actual appearance. Because of the forecast, Krista's bus only made it to Raleigh, which is two hours away from Jacksonville, so I took a little road trip at 0500 on Friday. It was nice because I traveled to a new place all by myself. Needless did we know, however, that that slight mishap was only the tip of the iceberg of Greyhound's troubles.
Leading up to Irene's wrath, Derick and I planned to just ride it out at home, and because our friends, The Snows, were doing the same, I tried not to stress too much about the hurricane and just make the best of it. I've been through uncountable tornado warnings, so one hurricane wasn't really burning my skin, if you know what I mean. The closer Irene came, and the more I watched the news, though, the more I started to sweat about how bad Irene was actually going to be. I heard a news anchor say, "this is going to be a historical hurricane," which scared me, but as long as we weren't the only idiots riding it out, I figured what tha heck?!
As Friday afternoon dragged on, the sky became darker, almost like it was covered in smoke, and the wind picked up. I wanted to know what people in our actual neighborhood were planning to do, so luckily, I caught our nice neighbor, a Marine, outside. I asked if they were staying for the event, and he said yes, as were the neighbors on the other side of him. I also asked what we should do as far as protecting our house. I'd noticed that a few people had already bought plywood to put on their windows, but that seemed like a lot of work for Krista and me, since Derick was still at work at the time. Our neighbor told me that he was just going to tape up his windows, and he even offered me some of that Marine Corps-issued tactical tape, which was sweet, but I remembered Derick had a stash somewhere. The neighbor told me how to tape our windows to keep them from busting through and scattering glass all over the place. Once he showed me that, I went a little tape crazy and started taping every window in our house in as close to an OCD style that I possibly could. The tape left me with peace of mind, and we didn't lose a window, but once Sunday morning rolled around and beaming sun hit the big window directly, it became a hot mess to pull off. The sun melted the tape onto the window, so Derick had to use a Brillo pad to scrape off all the sticky, and I went behind him with Windex to clean it off. Lucky for us, this only happened to the big window in the living room.
Winds began to pick up late Friday night, and we had some friends over so to help eat all the meat in the fridge in case the power went out. By the time our friends left, the wind was pretty strong and it was raining hard. I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep any time soon.
So Krista, Derick, Paris (ok, not Paris. She slept through the whole thing) and I stayed up and watched the weather for a long time. The wind made a really crazy sound; it was just a constant roar. I'd never heard wind make a sound like that. It just never quit, and the sound only intensified throughout the house because it hit the chimney and echoed. We looked outside frequently, and the tree in our front yard was bending over every which way. I was so scared a stupid branch was going to come flying right through the windshield of our new car. We decided to park the Kia in the garage because it's newer, but it was hard to decide because the Kia has had two windows replaced, and both of those windows can be replaced again for free. We chanced it and parked the Ford in the driveway, and it was fine.
Krista went to bed around 2300, and she didn't make a peep all night. She said she hadn't slept that well in a long time. She's weird.
Derick fell asleep on the couch around 0230 or so, but I stayed up glued to the TV. I finally dozed off a little bit and woke up to look outside. It was raining very hard, and the wind was still making a constant roar. I dozed back off, and woke up around 0700, at which time Derick and I watched it storm pretty hard. We kept falling asleep and waking up, and when we woke up around 1000 on Saturday, we decided we had actually slept through the craziest part of the storm. So all in all, Irene wasn't so bad here in Jacksonville, and I have been way more terrified during a tornado.
We strangely lost power after the thick of the storm was already well north of us. Power was out for about five hours, and I was actually surprised at how quickly it was back ok. Good job, Jones Onslow.
We were also on curfew from late Friday night until Saturday night, so needless to say, we were all ready to finally get out of the house.
Because the storm hit the OBX pretty hard, we weren't able to take Krista on the ferry to Cape Lookout, so she will have to go next time. We did take her to Wilmington and to the beach, where she and I found a whale, but that's a different story!
As for damage, we didn't suffer very much, and I've seen more debris scattered in Arkansas after an ice storm or tornado. There were a lot of branches and leaves around, and a big branch fell on our trampoline, but didn't damage it. (Thank GOD!) We have (had) a little dead, grey tree (more like a branch) in our back yard that was a pain in the butt to mow around because someone had built a little mulch bed around its trunk and walled it in with little bricks. Derick was cleaning and mowing the yard the other day, after the storm, and he barely bumped the little dead tree with his rear end, causing it to fall over. So no more for the tree.
I'm thankful to be alive after Irene, and I'm glad we didn't have any significant damage. I know it could have been a lot worse. Some of base housing was out of power for 36+ hours, and Derick's school didn't have air conditioning on Monday. He said he sweat like the dickens all day long. He even came home sweaty, which was gross.
I'm not a big fan of storms, but I'm also working on controlling my freak outs, and I think I behaved nicely during Irene. Ask Derick, Paris, Krista, the Snows, and Stender, though. They have the true answer to that!

OTHER NEWS

* My dear friend, Beth, and her baby, Emmett, are visiting this weekend, and I get to hang out with them tomorrow! I'm really excited to laugh with Beth again and to see how much Emmett has grown! I'm a little sad because I know this will probably be one of the last times--if not the very last-- that I will get to see them before they head off to 29 Palms, California, but it will for sure be nice to visit since I haven't seen them since July.

* Derick and I are going to a Duke football game with the Snows on Saturday. I think it's Duke. I don't really know much about what's going on, really. I'm just along for the ride. I am looking for someone to drop in and feed and water Paris a couple times on Saturday, though, so if you live in the area and want $20 or so, holla atcha girl. Isn't that a weird saying?? And what perfect context in which for me to use it for the first time.

* I have some cotton candy, blue and pink hair extensions, and I keep making Kelsey swear that I don't look like a teeny-bopper or devil worshiper.

* My parents are visiting at the end of this month, and I am really looking forward to that!

* I've been watching "Switched at Birth" on Netflix a little obsessively during the past two days.

* My house needs to be cleaned. If you're in the area and want, say, a free sandwich, come clean my house. Holla atcha girl.

* I'm already sick of the status update game going around with pregnancy implications. I already told Derick that one of the weirdos from his old neighborhood is pregnant. Sorry if you're that weirdo, but that's really what you get for posting such cryptic status updates on Facebook. Those same people are the ones who throw spit-fire fits because of the "drama" and "gossip" involving them on Facebook. Come on, if posting a status that implies that you're with child when you actually aren't doesn't just scream "I CRAVE ATTENTION!" then I don't know what does! I may just title this blog post "Drama and Gossip" because I know I'll get triple the hits.

* Kelsey and I discovered the Paradise Point pool today, and it is schmancy fancy! It closes on Monday, though, so isn't that just our luck!?

* Yesterday, I saw this fun woman working out at the gym, and I thought she was super cool. She was an older, shorter, Filipino woman with a Victoria's Secret Pink jacket and tight spandex shorts on. She was also wearing hot pink weight lifting gloves and listening to an iPod. She would lift a couple reps of weights, then stand by the machine and do a very original, energetic dance. Then, she'd move on to another weight machine, lift a little, then stand by the machine and do another dance. Some of them involved some sweet kicks and shimmies. I like that lady. She just didn't give a dang. That's cool.


Everybody have a nice weekend! Tomorrow is Friday, Friday. Gotta get down on Friday.