There for the Grace of God...

I have now survived my first tropical storm.

Humberto blew up very quickly--Wednesday morning, they were talking rain, maybe some thunderstorms. I had trouble finding the newspaper because a big branch had fallen from one of the trees in the front yard. Maybe 3 in. diameter at the base. Very branchy, with lots of dead leaves (so I think it was half-broken before it fell). Not real heavy, though I couldn't drag it off the front sidewalk very easy. So I went on to my planned afternoon of errand-running and library-visiting.

When I reached the post office, the fella called and told me that the thunderstorms offshore had been officially declared a tropical storm. But it wasn't raining very hard, so I went on to the P.O. and the library. Still wasn't raining hard after the library visit--spent a lot of time there, checked out one book. They didn't have any of the others. So it was after 4 p.m. when I left the library.

It started raining harder while I was at the seafood market buying shrimp. (Hey, I was downtown. The fish markets are on the piers downtown. Why not buy shrimp?) And even harder when I went to the grocery store. By the time I got home, it was pouring. And I had groceries to carry into the house. Not much wind, but lots and lots of rain. Exchanged my walking shoes for flip-flops to keep the shoes from getting too soaked. Lost a can out of one of the grocery sacks, and just left it lying there in the rain. I was trying to carry as many sacks as I could at one time so I didn't have to make more trips, and didn't have a hand to spare (didn't even have one for my umbrella--just sorta held it in place with my chin...) to pick it up.

So by the time the fella got home, Humberto was still hovering about 20 to 35 miles offshore and building up steam. The neighbors had come over to tell us that we flood--if not right away, then maybe when the high tide came in. So after our shrimp dinner, we spent the rest of the evening carrying beds, futon mattresses and assorted other things upstairs to the main floor. (I was already nursing a strained finger--now it's really sore...) The electricity went on and off a bunch of times, then went off and stayed off, so we went to bed early.

Humberto skirted us. We didn't even get water in the garage (which will happen in a really hard rain). A few more branches (smaller ones) fell off the trees, lots of leaves on the deck. But at the north end of the county, an older couple had their house moved a foot off its foundation and the roof peeled off. Even though the eye went ashore much farther east. This was maybe 50 miles from us. We are grateful for small mercies.

Yesterday, I was a slug. (Okay, I was writing like a maniac to finish my pages for the BIAY bracelet.) Today, I went out to walk at the beach. The sand is still soaking wet, even up near the seawall where its usually dry. And I found a whole stretch of whole, joined-together scallop shells. (I kinda think the gulls got to them, but maybe not.) Plus some pink barnacle-looking shell things, and a blue crab claw. (The gulls definitely got the rest of the crab.) I didn't touch the claw, but I did bring the pink shells home. (I'll post a picture, when I take one...) So Humberto was a little rough on the under-sea residents too, seems to me.

I'm working on the new synopsis for Thunder. I like it, but it's going slow. I need to decide what I'm going to work on next week...Ought to be getting revisions for New Blood pretty soon. I want to finish my revisions for the proposal of Thunder, get the synopsis written and out, and then...I dunno. Do revisions on New Blood, then maybe start the Irish shaman story over. Or work on my demon slayer story... Hmm.