The prize

I was innocently surfing Facebook, feeling sorry for myself, and planning what I was going to say to Ron when he got up, when I saw we have a tropical thing/hurricane headed straight for Houston.  You probably already know this by now. 

We almost flooded last year when we got one foot of rain in a night, you can imagine my concern.   We, meaning the house, flooded back in 2001.  I can still see the taping lines on the drywall where they had to remove it and replace it.  We didn't live here at the time, but the damage was so bad the owner literally sold the house to a flipper. 

Well. 

We do have flood insurance, which is some comfort, but I'd really rather not ever use any insurance, ever, if I can avoid it. 

Needless to say, this is the last thing I need.  Huh, that would have been a good blog title "The Last Thing I Need".  But, really. 

I did have some good news, not many people knew about this, and I was already going to Walmart.  Yesterday I sweet-talked Ron into a Walmart trip. 

Transportation is moderately difficult for me.  I have to ask Ron, get him to make the trip, discuss times and duration, etc.  All done the night before. 

Well, last night I wanted to get Biscuit! some Fancy Feast Tuna since he likes it so much.  Ron agreed, because, after all, it was for Biscuit. 

So we had a trip.  Our ride was on time.  We had to pick up another client and she barely fit in the backseat.  I made a point of mentioning the paleo diet working for me, to the driver.  She had some size issues as well.  I mainly stated it in the "I had so much pain, and it's all gone now" context.  She asked me if I had lost any weight, and I said yes, about 10 pounds. 

I never really measured my starting weight, but it was around 253.  I am now down to 243. 

Anyway, we got to Walmart, it was pretty quiet.  I got a cart and ran over to the bottled water.  A case of bottled water, is, after all, the prize when we've got a tropical event coming to town.  And I could use it, too.  When it gets close to landfall, people actually fight over the damned things.  The water display was about half-gone, but still plenty of water left.  I grabbed a case and put it in my cart, glad I am doing paleo so I don't have that awful shoulder pain anymore. 

Now, for my primary purpose.  I got Biscuit 2 cases of the Tuna cat food.  He was very happy to see it when I got home. 

If nothing else, this tropical thing is going to mess up transportation for a while, and we won't be going to Walmart.  I have about 3 weeks of medication, that is plenty.  A week and a half is already done up in my pills of the week organizer. 

Next up, I went and looked at canned food.  I knew Ron had plenty, I wasn't worried about him.  I wanted some paleo options, or, at the very least, the least-worst processed options.  I got some canned fruit (pineapple and fruit cocktail in juice), vegetables (short-cut green beans), and some meat (canned Vienna sausage).  I got enough to hold me for about half a week.  I will, after all, be eating up leftovers from the fridge and freezer for a few days.  We found that one out last time (Hurricane Ike). 

If we do lose power, we got it back in 4 days with Ike.  We are near some schools, so they are a priority.  We are also near businesses.  So that shouldn't be too bad. 

However, if we lose power, our elderly fridge makes alarming noises when the power resumes, and takes a while to start up again.  I would worry about it dying altogether. 

If we get any amount of water in the house, it's going to be catastrophic.  I do have portable cell phone chargers so I might be able to fire off a cell phone blog, like the photos I do sometimes. 

We are up, and back, from the street.  We have some elevation, I'd say about 10 feet up from the street level, so it would have to be pretty bad before it got in the house. 

And, of course, there's very little I can do to prevent this from happening, if it happens.  I have all the irreplaceable (my first Bible, the Bible given to my grandmother in 1937) stuff on "high ground", I can move the cat beds, the computer is already on top of something, etc. 

Ugh.  I want to prepare for it but there's really nothing I can do.  Just wait and watch, see where it goes and if it really does "bless" Houston with the 2 feet of rain I am hearing about. 

Good news, I've already been through one tropical storm (Allison) and a hurricane (Ike) so I have a pretty good idea what to expect. 

But, if you pray, I would love to get some for this to be a "nothing", if that's God's will.  I don't wish it on someone else but maybe God can rearrange and send a nice high pressure ridge to nudge it out of the way.  I'll even take "Good thoughts" if you aren't "religious". 

And, of course, hoping Ron behaves.  I think he only has one bottle of vodka left so he can't get into too much trouble. 

Famous last words.