Earthquake, Hurricane, Rotten Beams!!

Oh my....long time without posting--various notes in the works--but here's a quick up-date on this week of one excitement after another.

All is relatively fine.  There is massive flooding in the neighborhood--all my regular walks are under many feet of water, and many roads are closed due to collapsed bridges and fallen trees, but there was not too much damage here.  Which isn't to say it has been un-eventful--turns out that even a hurricane that doesn't live up to its advance warnings can still cause plenty of havoc.

But--first the earthquake.  Who knew?  I was sitting in the living room, lap top appropriately in lap when the pink bowl and vase on the shrouded piano starting rattling and shaking violently.

quivering bowl in repose

The house has not had any resident animals (as opposed to the past twenty years or so), but my first thought was that somehow a small animal had climbed into the vase and was now trying to escape.  Or--even weirder--perhaps a bevy of small beasts had just hatched or gained consciousness or whatever--and were now trying to reach the wider world.

The rattling grew louder and louder.  Should I intervene?  Surely it was my responsibility to free the imprisoned creatures.  As I approached the quivering bowl, I must have become aware of a bit more motion in the house.  This didn't feel like any earthquake I'd ever experienced, but....

At that moment, the phone rang.  It was Sarah. Perhaps she had heard a report of some super-natural extraordinary New Jersey event and was checking in.  Alas--she was not on the line.  Repeated efforts to re-call her were fruitless.

The shaking stopped.  There was a voice mail from Sarah.  She hadn't called me, but her clever phone had--instead of a message there was a cluttered recording of anxious voices worrying about an earthquake.  Eventually contact was made--we learned that we had --in both Brooklyn and New Jersey as well as many points north and south been shaken by an earthquake in Virgina--which had caused little serious damage but shaken many nerves.   Time for a lesson on the difference between the stone underpinnings of very old east coast as opposed to the potentially crashing tectonic plates under our California homes.  That was last Tuesday.

After that reminder of  the unpredictable nature of all things, we were understandably on edge as Hurricane Irene made our way towards our shores and cities.   So much anxious anticipation....waiting, waiting, waiting....lots of extremely knowledgeable predictions--followed of course by one surprise after another.

Sarah, in Brooklyn, was on the edge of various evacuation zones, Sam, printing in Florence, Mass. was in the direct path of the storm--but it was expected to be much weaker once it reached him.  It wasn't clear what to expect in northern New Jersey.  Everyone thought trees would  be downed by the strong winds which would cause inevitable power outages, and there was concern about the already very saturated earth.

apple tree down

In the end, Sarah, in Brooklyn, was relatively unscathed.  In New Jersey, I lost power for about seven hours--it was a partial power loss--the refrigerator wasn't working--and lights were too dim to do any good--but there was a glimmer of electricity flowing somewhere--just enough to lead me to suspect I was losing my mind.  Sam--who appeared to be furthest from all threats was actually evacuated.  He was printing in an old restored factory building on a tributary of the fast-rising Connecticut River--which was emptied out by the fire department.  He even got snacks at a Red Cross Shelter before staying with a friend of a friend.

high waters

The damage here was pretty minimal.  The stone retaining walls, not quite finished last year, took another serious blow, the long dirt driveway is very severely rutted, one of the two apple trees was toppled (oh the deer are happy with all those ripe apples at mouth level), and the waters everywhere are very high.

The paths in my adjoining wetlands are completely underwater.  

Today, Wednesday, many roads are still closed, detours and traffic everywhere--and power is still out in large areas.  

My house weathered these storms and tremors, but alas, the damage of the centuries is slowly being revealed.

rot, rot

and more rot.

As Johnny and George returned to work removing old siding, they have discovered one rotten beam after another.  These are the basic beams supporting the house.  Lots of remedial work to come.  

Off to the city

Oh--I have been a very absent blogger these past three weeks.

As always, I could offer many excuses--but instead will just try to quickly fill in the blanks--and I'll even back-date--due to my compulsion to create a chronological narrative.

George arrived Tuesday  morning for some siding preparation   I had been planning to drive to the city on Wednesday as I'd offered to do some minimal afternoon babysitting for Josie and Si, but when Alexandra called to verify all plans early Tuesday afternoon,  she urged me to come for dinner that night--and, not needing much encouragement, I accepted.  Lots of house cleaning and refrigerator emptying before I left.  My biggest concern (oh the things that take up space in my brain) was that I would be missing garbage pick-up on Friday.  To avoid piles of garbage in kitchen, I packed the freezer with garbage bags while in my ceaseless effort to avoid abandoning food in the fridge, I packed a cooler with excellent left-overs and farm fresh produce.

I had planned to return books to the library, but given the slow pace of all things decided instead to re-new on line.  A small note on what's can be considered transgressive behavior these days.  Due perhaps to my flawed enunciation, or the librarian's failing hearing, it was necessary for me to spell out my last name--G as in girl, etc.  B as in bomb, said I.  "Did you say bomb?" she asked incredulously, as if I had threatened an act of terror.  When I admitted I had, she could not stop laughing--who would have guessed that a Sussex County library patron would take such risks? 
"Thanks for the endorphins," she said, as we finished our transaction.   It didn't occur to her to turn me in.

I left home around 4pm--the drive was easier than expected, even across Manhattan and arrived in time for promised splendid dinner.  My babysitting hours were quite limited(2:30-5, Wed-Fri) allowing me to take care of bits and pieces of miscellaneous New York business.

The first task of my New York  day,  was the acquisition of a half price Metro card.  There are all sorts of internet instructions, but the most direct method involved a trip to downtown Manhattan where, minutes from the ever-traumatized Wall Street, I got to stand on a number of relatively quickly moving lines, sit on some government issue hard plastic seats, get my picture taken with even less time for primping than at the DMV.

I was rewarded with a card that wil serve the function of a Matro Card--but alerts the machine to charge just half prce for each ride purchased. That is the good news.  The bad news is that boldly printed across the front of the card are the words Senior Citizen.  As my friend Gail pointed out, our youth-clinging cohort never quite noticed that we were middle-aged (though others certainly did)--and now--here we are unavoidably Seniors.  Like all age-related observations--this comes as a complete surprise.

 

Endless chores.....

The door scraping is endless.  I suppose it's obvious--but once again a reminder of how easy it is to abandon these chores mid-way.  The final layer of paint removal seems imminent--but there is always more smoothing to be done.  It does seem a bit mad to scrape off all paint only to re-paint again--but the bare wood is so old and weathered--it is practically crying to be covered once more--all the more reason to draw the scraping to an end.

But--before declaring that task accomplished, we took a break for another endless activity--mowing and weed-whacking.  Actually, Sam, accomplished weed-whacker that his is, broke new ground, clearing out the jungle in front of the house--under the bedroom windows and on the incline.  I prefer mowing myself--and did quite excellent work both in the front and back yards, though Sam did some important work on the hillside. 

This will be the last round of work for a while as Sam is heading off to Cambridge to find an apartment for September and then off to Florida to visit Grandma Betty.

I drove him to Dover to catch a 5:30 train and then wound my way to Margaret's house on Cranberry Lake.  I'd been there 25 years ago---but at night in the winter, and didn't realize that it was a perfect little house perched over the water.  Sitting in the dining room (we went for a swim followed by dinner with Maddie and Margaret), it felt like we were on a boat. 

Drove home in the dark as heat lightning flashed across the sky.  Very dramatic.