Hurricane Sandy - Day 2.

Now this is worrisome. 

It's around 1:30.

The wind is gusting more.

It's raining harder.

The water is rising.

And here's the disturbing part:

This is low tide.

High tide is around 8 tonight.

Tail-end Of Sandy.

Sandy is still with us.

Still blowing and raining,

although not as hard.

Still getting the occasional gusts.

High tide was around eight this morning,

and, as you can see,

the water level is pretty much normal.

Hopefully, the worst is over,

but we don't know until the next high tide.

The west wind and a high tide

do not a good mix make.

Off to make tortilla soup.

Ole!

Arriba!

More Of Sandy.

I'm sure many of you are wondering,

"What does Rosie eat during a hurricane?"

Well, Imonna tell you.

Rosie eats comfort food

and Rosie's comfort is meatloaf on white bread with butter.

A nice whole wheat heel is really good too.

Mr. Hawthorne and I (Read: mostly me.)

have spent the past few days preparing for Sandy.

We learned from ThatBitch Irene.
We'd never had flooding to that extent before.

Our homes are on pilings,
so we don't worry about that.
We worry about all the equipment and debris of our lives
one normally stores in a
 ground-level utility room and garage.

After ThatBitchIrene,
the cleanup entailed taking EVERYTHING
out of the garage and setting it in the driveway
and cleaning the garage completely.
Bleach was involved.
We went to Home Depot and
bought sturdy storage/shelving units,
installed them throughout,
let everything dry out in the sun
in the driveway for about 2-3 weeks,
then organized everything and put it back together.
I never want to have to do that again.
To make a short story long,
we had to lift several rather heavy items
to put up on planks atop saw horse.
There was a power washer,
a compressor, and a generator,
which I hope we won't have to use.
Then I had to figure out what to do
with the additional items Middle Hawthorne
left in the garage 3 weeks ago
when he was moving from Point A to Point L
and stopped at Casa Hawthorne along the way
 to "drop off some stuff."

Everything is ready.

And now ...
we wait.

Saturday Afternoon, Rosie Awaits Sandy's Visit.

The Outer Banks starting feeling the effects

of offshore Hurricane Sandy early this morning.

I woke to drizzle and gray clouds -

not a bad way to start out the day.

And the day continued to be lovely. 

Even though Sandy is way out,
we are worried about flooding here.
After ThatBitchIrene,
we always worry about flooding.

Sandy may turn into another ThatBitchIrene.

And that's what we're worried about.

Flooding.

Once the hurricane passes us,

the wind will change from northeast to northwest.

That's when the sound-side is most vulnerable.

And there is a full moon.
Earlier they were talking
about a 3-5 foot storm surge.

So, we prepare.

First item on the agenda today

was to bring in all the house plants

that have been summering on the deck.

However, before I could do this,

I had to re-arrange the furniture in the living room,

from my spring/summer motif

to my fall/winter motif.

But before I could re-arrange the furniture,

I had to vacuum the floors,

steam clean them, then polish and shine.

If you're moving furniture anyways,

take the opportunity to do a damn fine job

of which you are very proud. 

And a little re-arrangement

always is a good thing.

And then I moved my truck to high ground.

And now ...
 we wait ...

This is one of the funniest videos
I've seen in a while.
Watch the background.