Sandy? Is that you?

Well, the wind is picking up a little bit, and some rain is falling. This is sort of what I expected, which is a little less dramatic than the Halloween stealing, ten days without power that I saw on the local news website yesterday. Ah, yesterday, when I made my weekly pilgrimage to the grocery store. I saw some of my favorite regulars there, but wondered who the hell the rest of those people were and why they were buying so many bottles of water. I quickly realized they were the folks who had faith in the weatherman. We were pretty much out of groceries at our house, but I had a hard time justifying loading up a refrigerator that had been predicted to lose power. I grabbed four cans of soup as I figured we could heat them on the side burner of the gas grill. Yes, I had no doubt that my husband would not only be able to start the grill in the middle of a hurricane, but also would want to stand waiting for soup to boil. I have to admit that my first thought for heating the soup was to just use the microwave if the stove wasn't working. Admit it...you've had those moments of temporary insanity regarding power outages. I made sure I had bread and peanut butter, and there ended my plan.

I returned from the grocery store and promptly started trying to tie up the deck furniture, in the rain I must add, but of course used the wrong tarp and had basically fashioned a little umbrella that would've lifted off as soon as the wind hit 25 mph. Luckily the husband got home earlier than expected, and we were able to easily rectify the situation, or so we told ourselves.

The morning newscasters looked terribly disappointed as they broke the news that we were most likely only going to get a bit of wind and wet, and the rain would be done by Wednesday afternoon. I spent much of my morning today wondering if the gyn office was going to close early, enabling me to tone down the anxiety until another day. I also pondered the protocol for the power going out during a pap smear. Speaking of which, am I the only one who practically skips out of her yearly exam? Yahoo! 52 weeks off from awkward groping...at least on an uncomfortable table...well, at least...ok, enough of that. I took off put on my big girl undies and was at least partially distracted by my doctor's unbuttoned to chest hair shirt and gold chain. Seriously when in the past 13 years did he make this transformation?

The daughter came home announcing that she did not have school tomorrow, but it was just her school. Since I know how utterly hilarious she can be, I doubted her. However, it is true. The middle school she goes to is closed tomorrow, and here is part of the text of the email explaining it to us:

The district made the decision to close the Gillette Road Middle School building as part of their State-approved wind monitoring plan, which calls for action when notification is received that wind speeds are expected to be equal to or greater than 50 mph.

The district created the wind monitoring plan as a safety precaution in 2011 upon being notified by their architectural firm, that some exterior walls at the Gillette Road Middle School building were improperly installed when the building was renovated in 2005.  The District was advised that due to the improperly installed exterior walls, there is the potential for the safety glass to become unstable (in excess of 75 miles per hour winds) in specific areas of the building.

The district is currently involved in litigation with the architects and certain contractors to remedy the defect. As a precaution, the district along with independent experts will inspect the building thoroughly on Tuesday after the building has been exposed to high winds from Hurricane Sandy. Once the building is inspected and cleared on Tuesday, school is expected to resume on Wednesday. Information and updates will be posted on the district’s website at www.nscsd.org.

I am sort of speechless on this one, but not surprised as, after all, these are the same folks who made the semi-formal rules.
Once that task was accomplished I came home to ponder what other preparations I could make for whatever weather might come. When my son got home, we each had a frozen yum yum out of the freezer, you know in case the power went out. I watched a spider web on the porch taking some abuse from the wind, but decided it was not my responsibility to protect arachnohomes. Now that I see other stuff blowing around a bit out there, I realize I could've done more. The husband asked if I wanted to move any other stuff...um, no...it's raining and chilly out there now. Plus, I had this post I was working on before the power goes out. Oh, I probably ought to get to my overachieving attempt to provide dinner as well!

Be safe everyone!

**Oh, and the husband has a 4:30 a.m. teleconference tomorrow morning to find out if his office is closing...really? What do we think the chances of him doing that quietly are?**