Here Comes Sandy

It was just a little over a year ago that Irene came to town. Her pal Lee followed right on her heels and the Catskills certainly haven't forgotten their visits.

The junk swept into the Schoharie and Esopus Creeks is still caught in the trees. Huge mountains of broken limbs are still piled along the banks, in places that seem impossibly high for our beautiful fishing streams.

We've got an awful lot of brand spankin' new bridges in the Catskills. It's not that we got ambitious all of the sudden - the old ones got swept away.

And now Hurricane Sandy is bearing down on us.

We're not the same people we were before last year. We're more cautious. When the forecast calls for an historic storm, we listen.

In our house, we've got our plastic bags of water in the freezer - a great discovery during the last storm.
First, the bags of ice keep things in the fridge cold for awhile. When they melt, you can drink the water.
Smart.

We've got our mini-camper stove, a find I credit to my daughter, who spent a summer camping in the Adirondacks. The Pocket Rocket heats just enough water to make coffee.  Ahhhh. And we can heat soup on the woodstove. We'll fill the bathtub for plumbing necessities and we got a bottle of wine, just in case.

We know the local Holiday Inn will take pets. We evacuated there last year. It flooded a little, but it was a chummy crowd. We all sat on the back steps and watched the water rise til they had to shut the power off.
Then it got stuffy inside.

We're all facing this new storm with a combination of anticipation, dread and determination. There are long lines at the stores and all the batteries are gone, but people are laughing.  The bottled water is sold out, but we're joking as we look. One lady was buying clothesline - her old one is shot.

"I'm planning to use it on myself if the power's out too long," she joked.

We appreciate gallows humor more now. Seeing your home, or your neighbor's home, knocked off its foundation or filled with water will do that to you.

Our neighbors, the ones with the generator, have already invited everyone in the neighborhood to use their fridge, take showers, even sleep there. It could get crowded.

A new friend, whose home is in the mountains, has told us we're welcome there if we can make it, that the fires will be going and "the scotch will be neat."

We've told him he's welcome with us, though there's a higher risk of tree-thru-roof syndome at our place than his.

We're survivors. We made it through Irene. And we'll all be here when Sandy's gone. Whatever kind of guest she is, we'll clean up after her and keep on going.