Hurricane Sandy’s doing her thing and I’m doing mine.
Yes, I’m blogging, as so many are. What’s there to say about Sandy that isn’t already being said? What elements of the human condition are being discovered?
I’m not in the direct path and, as of now, Sandy hasn’t yet made the scene. It’s little more than a rainy Monday where I am but already I’m seeing posts of disappearing electricity from the other side of the Beltway.
A few moments ago, I re-read a text message I sent to an out-of-towner who had inquired about my welfare. My words struck me as what are quite likely to be my last words on this earth, preferably decades from now:
“I am scrambling to finish my vacuuming and ironing before everything goes black.”
Two days ago, I stocked up supplies on while they were still on the store shelves. Yesterday I organized my refrigerated goods. Today, after tending to a client project, I vacuumed the house and ironed some altar linens for the church.
An image from one of my favorite childhood movies peeked through my consciousness: The Impossible Years, starring David Niven, about a stodgy British father of two California teenagers in the 1960s.
A scene, the father demanding his daughter clean her room, resonated with me as much in 1968 as it does today:
DAUGHTER: How can you make such a big deal about one little, messy room when the world is flying apart? Race riots, people dying from air pollution, and any moment we could be blasted from the face of the earth, victims of push-button warfare. I can’t understand you, Daddy. Where’s your sense of values?
FATHER: Linda, if we’re going to be blasted from the face of the earth, you’re going with a clean room!
My sentiments exactly.
Hypothetically, say Sandy takes a spin through my neighborhood and, hypothetically, a 150-year-old black walnut slips from the loose grasp of its soggy ground and, hypothetically, slices into our guest room, exactly as one did in 1996.
Can I bear the risk of an insurance adjuster spotting a dust bunny under the nightstand? Not on your life.
But, after losing power again yesterday, something struck me. Without juice, it’s hard to tell time.
I remembered that we received six clocks—none electric—as wedding gifts 27 years ago. It was comforting to rediscover that some if not most of those are still around. Then I remembered the trusty timepiece my husband brought into our marriage, a relic from the 1950s, when his father sold shoes for a living.
Word Nymph 