What a beautiful sight! My end of the block, my very own house, all blue-white with electric light, spilling out into the night. Good thing, too, because I forgot to bring a flashlight when I went to S&J's.

Some notes from last week that I never figured out how to put on CD and take somewhere and post:

9-22-03, 9:15 a.m.

[Insert name of deity here] be praised: I had WorldCup coffee this morning. I also
learned, after ten or so years of frequenting said establishment, that they write out the name as one word. This means it’s alphabetized further down the phonebook column than World_of_Mirth, say.

No, no property loss, thanks. Assuming we don’t count as “property loss” some Eggos, three-quarters of a pound of butter, and many condiments of unknown age anyway. My fridge is as clean as it was the week I moved in, four years ago.

Isabel brought less rain and more wind than Floyd. The constant roar of the wind was like the white noise of being on the beach on a windy day, only turned up to eleven. Channel 6 news kept showing trees falling down all over the Fan and I talked myself into believing my oak would topple at any moment.

I lost power at five minutes to five on Thursday: at this writing I am in day four without power. When we lived in Oxford, Mississippi, an ice storm that did about equivalent damage – the sad, sad site of noble trees split asunder or up-rooted; power lines in the road – we stayed in the dark for nine days. At least my Capital City house has a gas stove: it could be worse.

Things that I am having trouble learning from the TD or channel 6 on the radio: are we still boiling water?, where does *the city* want piles of braches? Things that the TD is covering: belated directions on who should boil water and for how many minutes, pictures of fallen tress, and which malls are open: the PR woman for Short Pump Town Center was quoted as saying, “It is natural for folks to come to a mall and congregate.” (9/20/03) (In the interest of rationing the computer’s battery, I’ll refrain from comment.)

8:25 p.m.

The likelihood that a car will approach an intersection with an out-of-commission stoplight at a high rate of speed and with no regard to other drivers is in direct proportion to the expense of the car. Apparently, when one drives a huge BMW or an Expedition, one owns the road.

I got some reading done by electric light in Midlothian! The folks are “on the list” with their tree company. About eight trees came down on their acre. The neighbor’s SUV got smushed.

At the Byrd: darkness. Across the street, I had a late lunch at Double T’s. Capital City weather: heavy rain an hour or so ago; very muggy.


9/23/03, 8:19 a.m.

Hell, all that fussing about, and WorldCup’s wireless internet service isn’t even working. It rained harder than I expected last night and now my bedroom floor is all wet. People’s tree debris piles got strewn into the streets.

I note that the dry cleaner next to WorldCup had its vinyl siding pulled back by the wind. Nice brick work. I wonder if it was a gas station, once?

11:45 a.m. Brian called a while ago, from Maryland, to let me know it’s okay to drink city water, and to ask if Capital City had really had tornadoes.

9/24/03 3:20 p.m. Day Six of Darkness on South Mulberry.

This afternoon finds me at VCU’s ever-charming James Branch Cabell Library soaking up their electricity to recharge the computer. I spent two hours at RPL running it down. I signed up for a public computer so I could look at card catalogs online (homework assignment), but ran down this battery writing my comparison. . . . While here, I will look at an encyclopedia, for another comparison assignment. This will make me feel more okay about taking their juice.

The National Weather service declared something like four of yesterday’s weather events genuine tornadoes. Mom says the RTD wrote about a woman who had just restocked her fridge losing power, again. Yeah, that’s too bad: but is it true that the city won’t send garbage trucks through the alleys and we have to drag the supercans to the curb? That stiff is starting to stink, you know.

Some sites that raise smiles: salons on Main St. and on Belmont giving al fresco haircuts; a spray-painted banner on Grove, I think it was: “ALMOST AMISH.”

Capital City weather: beautifully blue and clear; upper 70s.


9/26/03 7:40 p.m.

Day Eight in the dark, at my end of Mulberry Street. Neighbors are beginning to have power again. It’s also about 30 hours since I called the City to notify them that my supercan got skipped on Thursday, and since they said they’d be sure someone took care of it “later today.” It’s stinking up the alley.

So I invited myself to Midlothian to recharge things and generally not read by flashlight. (Not to self: go ahead and buy new fluorescent bulb.)

I felt very out of my groove up at school. I had forgotten that the rest of the region does not begin conversations with, “So you got power yet?” It seemed weird to see all the trees on those two attractive campuses fully upright. “Libraries in Society” is a great class with a great teacher, so it helped me get back in school mode. We had some good small and large group conversations about ethics. Many thanks to F., at the seminary, for the Thursday night hospitality!

Byrd Park: about 1 out of every 15 or 20 trees fell over. Bryan Park: from B&E’s street, it looked rather better than Byrd Park, but from 95 today it looked pretty sad. North of Ashland, on the interstate, I didn’t note any fallen trees.