September 15, 2008 - Gone with the wind...

Who would have thought that the most bizarre weather I've ever encountered would take place in Louisville?? Since I've moved here I've experience a tornado in February, an earthquake in April, and now a hurricane in September!

Ok, actually I didn't get to experience the remnant of Hurricane Ike that shot through the area yesterday afternoon. I'd driven to Lexington to spend some time with the family, and while I had one moment of panic that might car might be tossed into the air and off the bridge spanning the Kentucky River, the drive was pretty uneventful, if windy. There was little bits of tree debris scattered everywhere, making the route look like any road in Nebraska after a good July severe thunderstorm, but nothing that indicated we were about to get hammered.

And indeed, nothing too dramatic happened in the several hours I was in Lexington. A tree broke off a tree across the street from my aunt's, and I heard today that some power outages occurred in town, but nothing huge. I didn't even realize what had happened until I drove back to Louisville.

As I drove down the street toward my apartment, I noticed that a lot of businesses were closed, and it was pretty easy to figure out it had something to do with the power given that pretty much every intersection was operating on the four-way stop concept. Let me take a second to declare that Louisvillians have a very loose understanding of that concept.

There was only one fast-food restaurant open along the road, so I pulled in to get something before I got home and discovered that I had no power and therefore no way to cook, and I waited for half an hour in the drive through to get a couple of fish planks from Long John Silver's. And green beans. Long John Silver's, for whatever reason, has really good green beans. When I got to the window, the girl on duty looked out and immediately turned around saying, "it goes all the way back to the street, ya'll!!" She then told me that the people behind me in line were going to be mad because they were going to have to close the store as they were running out of food.

I drove home, trying to figure out how I was going to find an all-black cat in an unlit apartment and successfully measure out her medicine, give it to her, and not end up bleeding somehow in the process. Luckily, I walked into the apartment and my lights all turned on, the cable worked (which was absolutely critical given that the Steelers were playing on TV last night, and I was fully tempted to drive back to Lexington and camp out at Aunt Linda's if luck wasn't on my side), and the cats didn't seem to be worse for the wear.

I didn't realize just how lucky I was until I watched the 11 o'clock news. Almost 300,000 people are without power (or were...some have been restored today), and trees are down everywhere. Crazy. We really did have a hurricane without the rains. Winds reached almost 80 mph at the worst and were sustained at 50 mph for over an hour. And I missed it. I have to deal with the after-effects, but I still missed out on the good stuff. I'm a little disappointed, even if I am extremely grateful.

Random Thoughts:

1. If you haven't seen this already, watch it. Then tell me two things: Why did Tina Fey leave SNL, and when is she coming back?

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/palin-hillary-open/656281/

2. The great cat integration of Jonah and Abbie is not going so well. I feel like a bad parent.

3. I don't drink it a lot, but I really enjoy the odd occasion when I get an Orangina.

4. Thank my cousin, Michael, for my new blog home. We'll see how I like it.