Blind Spot

Somehow or another, we usually seem to live in a blind spot for cell reception.  This time we seemed to be in a blind spot for Irene.  Maybe the circular arrangement of the apartment buildings created a wind shelter. Whatever happened, we didn't see the destructive winds or even the heavy rain.  It rained constantly, but it was hardly ever the driving rain we expected.  We never even lost power.  We shared a can of mystery meat just for kicks.

Some of the neighborhood lost large trees, and there were spotty power outages all around.  Apparently the church only regained power five minutes before mass.

The upstairs neighbors were the only unbearable part of the whole thing.  They were yelling and screaming and carrying on with loud music.  They sounded completely drunk, shouting obscenities off the balcony, or playing what could have only been full contact football on the floor (our ceiling).  It felt like the earthquake all over again.  It's been an escalating problem, but they always seem to act up on nights when the police have a thousand better things to do than answer a noise complaint.  Eventually I'll probably take passive aggressive action, like recording their drunken rampages from below and posting it on YouTube.

Mother Nature on a Rampage

We were fortunate enough to have sustained no damage during the earthquake, and we're hoping to make it through the hurricane, too.  I remember Hurricane Isabel, the falling trees and the week without power.  I think we're about as prepared as we can be.  The refrigerator is almost bare of perishable food.  We've squirreled away a generous supply of water bottles, wet wipes, crackers, fruit cups, canned fish and mystery meat.  The cell phones are charged up.  I did some eyeball calculations in the parking lot, measuring the potential fall radius of all the nearby trees in all directions, and I think I've put the car in a spot least likely to be crushed.  (I seem to be the only one concerned about that part.  There are some nice cars out there that I don't expect to be so nice next week.)  If worst comes to worst and the roads are impassible on Sunday morning, we could walk to mass at the strange interfaith center across the street, that is if a priest can make it in.  The issue I'm most concerned about is the fact that we're on the ground floor and the gutters from the roof empty on either side of our rather low patio.  It starts to flood during normal rainfall.  We'll probably move the couch further inland and roll up the rug.  Fortunately our renters insurance is up to date.