Hurricane

So as is to be expected when my family moves to a place, something catastrophic happens. In this case, it was a hurricane.

Hurricane Earl was a long nosed, shriveled little bureaucrat of a hurricane. He yelled from his car, but never on the sidewalk. He wrote long winded letters to the editor that he never sent. He wasn't very impressive.

The wind and rain began in the morning, a few hours before we all woke up. We had stocked up fully on batteries and canned food and a large 20L of water. Partly because of our survivalist tendencies, and partly because Nova Scotia Power has a terrible reputation of taking a very long time to get the power back on. In preparation, Mike had fixed the evestroughs, downspouts and put engine weld on an old cracked spout that took our rainwater down into the sewers.

The rain was really only spitting, but the wind was getting stronger and stronger. We listened to the radio, as the speed of it raised incrementally. I put the baby to bed, feeling the bed shake along with the house, watching the trees bend over sideways. The power went out, and my child, my rock, my bastion in the storm, slept through the hurricane.

It waxed, and then finally waned. I went outside and sat on the park bench outside of our house. Our neighbour played his saxaphone, the strains of which floated into the eerie greenish sky, not quite mournful, but sad nonetheless, and I surveyed the damage. Trees had lost large clumps of leaves which nestled themselves against cars, some leaves were stuck flat against the side of our house. I heard the damage was worse elsewhere.

Ender fussed because he wasn't allowed outside, and I placated him with horrible preprepared toddler meals that reminded me of kitty chow. We cracked open a can of meatballs and gravy for ourselves, and ate while it was still light. After the babe fell asleep, we read by the light of our flashlights until we fell asleep from the deathly silence of a city without electricity.

After it all, I feel Nova Scotian again. And my family has been baptized by a hurricane.

100th post

And after the expected hiatus, I'm back. And at the 100th blog post, to boot.

After a lag in posting I'm bound to leave something out, but I'll try my best:

Through most of July and August, my husband and I were packing, stressing, packing some more. We saw more of our friends than we had the entire year past. Everyone refused to say good-bye. There was a common element of denial where they all gave a crooked smile and said they'd come visit us before we left. While these didn't (and couldn't have) come to fruition, it was still nice to know people will miss us. Ender became rapidly more able to walk around this time, parading like a small tyrant unpacking boxes and causing general adorable misery. The movers came. The movers left. Our fish tank cracked. The fish were moved to a beer cooler, and seemed happy enough about it. We waved our things goodbye and made final preparations.

Ender and I took the plane together a few days later, which was a generally pleasant experience. It was his fifth plane trip, so by now he's an old pro. He waved bye-bye to each person leaving the plane, in turn. He crawled the walls of the bus shuttle as we made our way to the hotel. Upon check-in, I stripped him down to his diaper, where he giggled and rolled around on pristine linens. We napped. We had room service.

My dad and Mike travelled by car, taking various things we didn't want to wait to arrive with the movers. They arrived in the morning and slept in my fairly gracious suite, after 24 hours of straight driving.

The house closed without issue, and we entered it with awe. It is a gorgeous home. The pine plank floors have a gorgeous patina of age, the crown mouldings are simple but add formality to the master suite and parlour. The back yard is made up of overgrown trellises of English ivy and Virginia creeper. The old owners left us a Victorian style park bench in the back, and we sit on it, enclosed in a kind of dewy silence. Our neighbours introduced themselves, each in turn. All leave their doors open at all times of day and shout hellos over the fence.

While we've been much caught up in the general messiness of setting up a house, we've still had time for the simple pleasures of true home ownership. Ender splashes in his pool, learning to spray us with the hose and then laugh maniacally. He rips off the heads of flowers, and I don't scold him. Those flowers are there to be dessicated at his will! They belong to him! It is truly a glorious thing, to have space. Space to breathe and grow and love. It was immediately and irrevocably home.

Now to start school.