Post-Irma Erin

Not actually Erin.

Picture by KJ Photography

& is used with permission.

I realized that it's been a while since I posted a blog update on how I'm doing. I've been posting updates on Facebook, of course, but not everyone who reads this blog follows me there.

Short version: We're fine. We're all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?

Long version: I left Florida on Friday shortly after noon, and after twelve hours of driving -- most of which seemed to be spent in stop-and-go traffic in South Carolina, regardless of which road (interstate, US road, state road, surface streets) I took -- I ended up in North Carolina to spend the weekend with partner in podcasting Sean Sorrentino. I did some dry fire practice with Sean, met some really cool people, and then left Tuesday morning because I feel that guests,like fish, begin to stink after three days.

However, power was still out at home. It's not scheduled to be restored until this weekend, and so I'd be bored silly while sweating my bits off if I returned -- and the condition of some of the roads in Florida was still iffy -- so I decided to head west and hang out with some people in Tennessee because they'd indicated they would be happy to host me. So right now I'm in eastern TN through the weekend, hopefully heading home on Saturday or Sunday.

I've been speaking to my family every day over dad's cellphone. Mom, dad, dogs, house, they're all fine, just bored and hot. They can't even take showers to cool off because while they have water pressure, there's no power to run the electric sewer pump, so they need to be careful or else they'll cause the buried septic tank to overflow, which happened back in 2003ish. Believe me, no power + Florida heat + sewage smell = YUCK.

The house didn't take any damage from Irma so far as we can tell, but all the food in the refrigerator has gone bad, and likely all the stuff in the freezer as well. Fortunately there's enough canned food to feed everyone in the house. Yay preps!

Dad is currently in the hospital right now, and trust me, that's a good thing. He's been fighting pneumonia for about 2 weeks, and just before Irma he was diagnosed with COPD. He also has a tendency to complain and get in mom's way, so him being out of the house is good for mom's sanity, and because he's in a place with air conditioning and medical attention, it's good for him as well.

So as these things go, we were remarkably lucky. I still maintain that bugging out was the right choice of action, because (if for no other reason) I'm comfortable and they're not.