Saturday, September 06, 2008

Hanna in the House

Tropical Storm Hanna is here. The rain is coming down pretty hard now, and the wind has picked up a bit. Certainly not a full-blown hurricane, but rather unpleasant.

PH and I made our Saturday morning pilgrimage to the Farmer's Market early today, while the rain was still not too bad. Normally there are dozens of vendors. Today Tony and his wife were the only veggie farmers selling, there was one little fruit guy, and the dairy and cheese guy. PH, who had been hankering for one of the Hollis Farms raspberry and chocolate croissants, had to settle for an apple turnover from the one bakery vendor.

By the time we got home, it was raining hard and blowing a bit. Predictions are for several inches of rain and gusting winds up to 40-50 mph. I doubt this will be a truly bad storm, but the jury is still out whether I will drive the 40+ miles out west to the Saint Middle School Saturday evening contemporary worship service. I'll wait until four and touch base with the vicar and see.

My only real concern with this (things like losing power are annoyances but no true emergencies) is flooding in the basement, where we have many bookshelves full of books plus a couple of file boxes. The boxes are up off the floor, and the bookshelves have a couple of inches of bottom before the bottom shelf of books, but still, it would be a royal pain...plus the litter box is down there. Ah well, there are worse problems.

The potted herbs that were on the stairs out back are safely tucked away, the bird feeders are off their chains, and the flag is inside. Nothing more to do at this point than to hope that it will be no big deal.

I think I'll get some reading done before the power goes out. Stay dry!

Update at 2:45 pm - the power has come and gone several times now, but is still on, thank goodness. We're starting to get water in the basement, through one of the window wells, and PH is outside, bailing out water. Just don't want that window to break in. Then we'd really have our hands full.

Update at 8 pm: the sky is clear, the rain is over, the wind has died, and the power is on. All in all, an easy storm to get through. Praise be!

6 comments:

Lorraine said...

Hmm... not too optimistic -- to get reading done "before the power goes out" -- not "if" the power goes out? lol... :)

Where I live (just up north from you) it's always "how much more time do you think we have before we lose power" -- as we rush to locate the flashlights that should be on the refrigerator (grr..), etc. -- well, so far so good here, but we will see...

And, I wanted to ask which school you're taking your consortium at? Let's see, without actually saying the name of it, can I figure it out? lol.. It's not mine, is it? -- I'm taking my consortium class at Small Catholic Seminary In Our Nation's Capital But Almost In Maryland. It's Spanish For Ministry and this school is the only one in the entire consortium that offers Spanish.

Happy reading. And I hope your basement stays dry! (this is definitely the year we get a french drain/sump pump put in -- I'm tired of the worry.)

mibi52/ The Rev. Dr. Mary Brennan Thorpe said...

Power's been on and off and back on again a couple of times here, Lorraine. I just got word from my Field Ed supervisor not to come out to our Saturday Night service out in Leesburg because it's turned much worse out there. I was braced to go, and it's a relief that I don't have to. Our townhouse complex often has problems with basements when there is bad rain - I suspect they didn't grade properly and water doesn't flow away from the houses. And PH has just cme upstairs to tell me that we are starting to get some water in where the front window well is. He's gone outside to bail. Drat.

Yes, I'm doing the consortium class at the very same place as you, Spiritual Direction on Thursday nights. When are you there?

Lorraine said...

Well, in fact I'm there on Thursday afternoons, 1:00-3:00. What time do you usually get there? Maybe I could stay a bit later and you could get there a bit earlier and we could meet each other in person. That would be fun! :)

And, sorry about the water coming in the window. The rain has stopped here so hopefully it's the same down where you are. I have to go to a high school football game, so I'm very happy that it's stopped, since these football players -- macho that they are -- don't know enough to come in out of the rain (or snow, or freezing cold, or mud, or anything else you can name, except lightning). sigh..

Rev Dr Mom said...

We're waiting for Hanna here; hope we get off as well as you did.

mibi52/ The Rev. Dr. Mary Brennan Thorpe said...

RDM - how was the Hanna experience in your neck of the woods?

mibi52/ The Rev. Dr. Mary Brennan Thorpe said...

Lorraine - my class starts at 7 pm, and I normally get there at 6:30 or so, but if you want to stay a little later one Thursday, perhaps I can get there earlier, say 4:30-5-ish, and we could have an honest-to-goodness meet-up! Let me know what you think.