Omorka's Lair

Hope everyone had a safe and dry Ike Day.

*eyes Igor and Julia suspiciously*

So, two things that have been weirding me out:

1) All the pear trees are blooming again. Yes, in October. Both the decorative Bradford pears and the actual fruit-bearing canning pears that people plant around here and then never harvest. The best I can guess is that they're having to regrow their leaves, after they lost so many in the storm, and they don't have a "grow new leaves" phase separate from their "bloom" phase. On the one hand, it's sort of pretty. On the other hand, they're supposed to be turning red any minute now, and the Bradfords are one of the few trees we have around here that actually do any sort of fall color (the others are the Chinese Tallows, which aren't native, are nasty and invasive, and fell the heck apart during the storm; and the sweet gums, which generally seem to have done okay, at least in this part of town).

2) This afternoon, we got slowed down on the way home by two debris trucks picking up downed limbs from the curbside in River Oaks. Now, for those of you playing along in other states, River Oaks is the swankiest district in town - not necessarily the richest, but the largest concentration of Old Money and nouveau megawealth in Houston. Their storm debris - and only the tree branches and trunks, mind; bagged leaves, downed fences, and other such stuff were still sitting on the sidewalk - was only just hauled off today. The people who have enough money to fly in clean-up crews from other countries only just got their storm trash picked up. That's really disturbing.

--

Did Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for Movie Night. I realized I haven't watched this since my age was measurable in the single digits. It's subtext-tastic! Also, I hadn't remembered that "I have morons on my team!" came from this movie.

. . . the ELECTRICITY! [/beansbarton]

The power is back on, and the Spouse is doing much, much better.

Of course, now our car's in the shop with a broken belt and a broken fuse in the fusebox. But at least we have the MIL's old car to use as a 'loaner'.

Now we need to restock our all-but-empty fridge . . .

Still no power, but our cable connection is back up, so our laptops have high-speed connectivity again. We have to plug the router into one of the Spouse's batteries, but since we can suck power from our respective workplaces to recharge the laptops and phones now, and he can plug in the lightkit batteries at work, that's not as big an issue. So, there's some improvement, and at least we can be more interactive on other people's journal posts now. :-)

A/C would be nice, though. So would being able to use the fridge and freezer instead of the coolers, no matter how well the coolers have held up (and despite ice now being easier to find). This is all being really hard on the Spouse, especially now that the temperatures have crept back up. (Me? I'm fine. I spent my entire childhood sleeping with no A/C on; my mother didn't believe in having it on after sunset. I'd like it better if we had a better fan than the battery-operated one, but eh.)

Still no power. Am about 1/4 of the way through the grading I brought home and taking a break before tackling the second quarter. Hoping to be halfway through, and done with the part that absolutely has to be done before I can run progress reports, by the time we lose the light tonight.

Got laptops and one lightkit battery recharged at bassfingers's place last night (thanks again!). Also watched State and Main. I am less of a Mamet fan than the rest of this social group, so I wasn't terribly enamored of the writing, but it was incredibly well acted. It also includes an instance of the Sweater Curse, and the character who was supposed to be knitting actually did make the correct movements, although it was obvious that the piece she was holding couldn't possibly have been knit on those needles.

Landlord and handyman came by today and tried to start cleaning up the lawn; they had some sort of major equipment failure with the lawnmower and had to leae again, but they left a rake and a pushbroom so that we can start getting the huge mass of leaves out of the back yard. And by "we," here, I mosty mean the Spouse, as I did not volunteer for that and kind of think that that's what the part of our rent that goes to pay the lawn crew, who have not been by this week at all, is for. On the other hand, the handyman said he did get up on the balcony above the sunroom and patched everything that looked like it might have been the source of the leaks. They'll take a look at the exterior caulking on the windows that leaked later on.

Still no power. The ice we got at Partial Edibles is holding out well, and between the Hoppin' John with actual kielbasa instead of just the summer sausage last night, and a luxurious brunch of bacon, eggs fried in the bacon drippings, and French Toast this morning, I am feeling better about the food situation. I am tempted to go pick up a propane camping lantern for the porch, so that I can grill after sundown if need be (and for reading outside after dark). I suspect that tomorrow's dinner will be grilled whether the power is back on or not.

Movie Night is likely to be at bassfingers's place tonight, since he's back on the grid and we're not. This gives us an excuse to get dinner out as well.

Am procrastinating on grading, so that's back to normal, at least. :-)

I am severely jealous of the people across the street who have their power back and are flaunting it by leaving their lights on in broad daylight. :-(

While I'm kvetching, can I also note that I really hate having to wash all the dishes by hand? I know, I know, there are enough people who don't have their water back, I should be glad I can wash dishes at all, but it's on my list of 5 Least Favorite Chores and I'm having to do it after every meal. Yeah, baaww and all that. :-/

Still no electricity. The other side of our street and the north side of the next major street north of us both got theirs back yesterday. We are hoping this means good things about our area.

The Art Ninja and Bugcatch both dropped by yesterday and wished the Spouse a happy birthday, which helped a little. I still feel bad about failing to provide a cake.

This laptop is running out of juice; I might have to see if we can recharge it at QuantumDad's.

We cleaned all the food out of the fridge and freezer, and found that it wasn't as bad as it could have been. In fact, I managed to salvage a pork hock and a whole cut-up chicken from the freezer - they were in the center of the giant pile of frozen food, under the ice-cream-churn bowl and next to the ice trays, and were both still quite solidly frozen. There was also enough ice left in the bottom two trays to chill the fruit, salted butter, milk chocolate, and green onions from the refrigerator, all of which were still good.

So, change of plans for tonight. The ham hock will be okay in the cooler with said ice for tomorrow (which means Hoppin' John is on the menu), but that chicken has to be used today, so dinner tonight will be barbecued chicken and potatoes with butter.

If anyone is in the neighborhood and wants to drop by to wish the Spouse well, please feel free. If anyone happened to have found a cake for him, I would leap up and down in joy, but if we have to do that later, we'll do that later. Worst-case scenario is that I stick a Hanukkah candle in a Twinkie and we squint really hard.

The Bi-Bulb may not be plugged in to the grid, but the batteries are holding up, and the very bestest Spouse in the world has a birthday today!

If anyone knows a restaurant we can get to that won't take too much gasoline to reach, please please please give me a ring (landline or my cell; the Spouse's is running short of juice) - I'd really like to do something special for his birthday, despite the lack of power (or oven - I can't even bake him a cake! :-( )