What a Namesake!

It has been an exciting few days! When the other moms were talking about a stormy weekend coming up last Wednesday, I had no idea what we were in for. Without a TV, we weren't inundated with warnings like some other folks were. It wasn't really until I started actively looking stuff up on Saturday that it started to sink in that we had some serious prep to do. Penny, Paul and I were hanging out with Mom for Saturday and I called Dan to say he really SHOULD pick up some water at the store. He wasn't thrilled, but complied. Afterward, he turned up with a small amount of expensive brand water, all that had been left on the shelves really. He also swore he wouldn't do the hurricane purchase action again because it was pretty ugly in the supermarket on a Saturday afternoon before a hurricane.

On Sunday morning, I made my own run to the store because we also needed non-perishable food, more water, etc. Much more civil crowd at 8am and they've restocked a bit, for those of you who are in this situation in the future. We carried on our Sunday pretty much as usual, then hunkered down for the evening, filling every water carrying device I could - baby bottles, sport bottles, pitchers - since bottled water had been too scarce at the store. The wind started in as we went to bed. The wind continued all through Monday, with sporadic rain all day. You could tell it was getting stronger and worse, but pretty gradually. I packed a suitcase with clothes to serve as the start of our "Go bag" in case we had to leave suddenly. We'd still need to put together water and food, but I figured that could be done when we got to that point. I asked Dan under what conditions he'd think we should leave the house. He figured if we saw water coming up the street. I told him that was probably too late in the game. I was thinking more along the lines of our house being structurally compromised. Thankfully, we never really had to figure this one out.

While I read Penny her bedtime stories, the lights flickered on and off as the wind howled outside. We kept peeking out at the trees whipping wildly. Dan gave Penny a little pen light to take to bed in case she got worried overnight and she went off to bed easily. I was trying to get a video of the crazy trees across the way, bending at horrible angles, but was thwarted by the dim lighting. I had just given up when I heard a loud crack. I looked back out the window and the neighbor's street tree had fallen alongside his house, poking the windshield of their truck. There were all kinds of flashes of light, but with the roar of the wind so loud we couldn't tell whether it was transformers blowing, lightening, or something else entirely. We did our last load of laundry (a cloth diaper had eluded notice on Sunday night, and that just wouldn't be ok to hang around through an extended power failure) and managed to finish that before the power finally died out at 9pm. I figured that was the signal for bedtime and headed upstairs to rest for a bit.

I put extra blankets on the kids then got in my PJs and lay down. As I lay in bed, I could feel the whole house shudder with the force of the wind. It was like living in an apartment next to a freight rail line - a low frequency rattle that just never seemed to end. I could hear the rain hitting the walls like someone wringing out their hair in the shower. It was pretty impressive. I figured there wasn't really anything else to be done at this point and eventually drifted off to sleep.

When we awoke at 5am (ah, the joys of having an 11 month old), all was dark and the wind had definitely calmed quite a bit. As dawn broke, we noticed that each of the houses on the other three corners of our intersection had lost a tree. The more light outside, the more people began to wander about. The neighbor who used to have the pine tree had it diced up, bundled and ready to be hauled away by the afternoon. The couple with the tree on their house here had a trash truck come and see how much they could crush up in the back of the truck. I was impressed that the sanitation folks had started overnight on Tuesday night and they kept coming around all day, which meant lots of stuff was hauled away by this afternoon.

By Tuesday afternoon, we were getting a little stir crazy, so we took a short stroll to the neighborhood across Hylan Blvd. This street is the dividing line between us and the evacuation area - Zone A. From Hylan, it's only about four blocks to the pirate ship playground Penny loves. That playground has a boardwalk and beach that overlook the Great Kills inlet and marina. One block down from Hylan, we passed the plastic tops to piers. There seemed to be a billion cars, way more than are ever there even on weekends. We passed more marine debris and then got to the last block and saw why everyone was there. The marina had moved inland and was now ashore in the park. Here you can see a play structure shaped like a pirate ship next to a new ship. One of the weirder discoveries was when we walked onto our favorite play structure. I noticed that the play surface was full of rolling hills rather than its usual flat appearance. As I stepped onto the woven rubber surface, I sank and sort of bounced. Then I walked up onto the mound and it was quite solid. It seemed like the sand beneath the rubber surface had duned, leaving large portions unsupported and springy. Daddy and Penny enjoyed exploring these fun new features for a bit. You might be able to make out the large bit of driftwood lodged in the climbing structure behind them as well. There were bits of piers littering the park everywhere, from park benches to the fences.

Boats, still moored to their docks, had washed in on the record-breaking storm surge and high tide, coming to rest on the houses facing the park, the fences and the sign posts. Some were little boats, but most were pretty sizable. The Dockside Restaurant unwillingly hosted two yachts, one so large that it was embedded in the front door and still blocked the entire street in both directions. Our neighbors were there touring, identifying their property, bailing out their basements, even offering up their saturated garage contents as free for any takers. Penny noted how beautiful all the puddles were with their rainbowed surfaces. It explained why the ground felt so slick beneath my shoes. The downed wires here and there made me pretty nervous. We passed block after blocked block of boats, broken piers, and all kinds of crazy debris. We found we had to retrace our steps to escape because every street back to Hylan was obstructed, sometimes up to a block inland, with scores of boats. It was like touring a movie set as people posed and/or photographed the surreal scene.

We headed back home because it was chillier than anticipated. It was tough crossing Hylan because traffic lights were all out, leading to some pretty nasty and frustrated traffic. We eventually found some helpful people who stopped to let us cross and head back home. We went back and had our dinner, which finished the last of what we could salvage from the fridge since the power had been out all day. Another bedtime that went pretty smoothly considering and I turned in even earlier in an effort to conserve our battery power. By the time we awoke for good the next morning (Thursday) our power was restored and blessed heat returned to our home. We were SOOOO blessed compared to our neighbors and our neighborhood. Thanks to everyone who had us in their prayers!

The Green Lady at Long Last

 For years we have been watching the "Green Lady" from across the water. Penny has often expressed interest in going, but there's always something more exciting that she chose first (my children's museum, the ice cream store, the library). So I was very surprised when she I gave her a number of options for her random day off last week and she chose the Statue of Liberty. It was ideal, really, because in the middle of the week there would be frequent public transit to Battery Park, where we'd need to pick up the ferry to Liberty Island.

So off we went - caught a bus just outside our house, all along Staten Island and across the Verrazano Bridge into Brooklyn. We then hopped onto the subway to Manhattan. We got to recite our favorite lines from "Subway" by Karen Katz along the way. Then off we got at Battery Park and purchased our tickets for the ferry. They made an announcement that the next one we could get on would be 90 minutes away, so we went off for some lunch.

We returned from lunch and headed over to the ferry, where we were greeted by a very long line for the security check. The attendant said it would be about an hour from where we stood to the ferry...this was looking like a very long day. Paul decided he was dying of thirst and just couldn't wait until we were on the boat, so I managed a feeding as we stood in line and Penny managed the stroller. I was pretty proud of being able to balance and be discreet and all.

Finally, we made it out to the island and Penny was pretty thrilled. She took charge of the audioguide as we wandered about the island. The statue is closed until the end of the month, so we did a lap of the gift shop, got the long-awaited aquamarine customizable crown, then did a lap of the island as well. We did take a brief break to decorate the crown - very important since she'd been asking for one since we set out.

Our next big stop was Ellis Island. We took a quick spin around the museum, reading all the signage at Paul level. Paul took the time to crawl around the exhibit floor since he'd been cooped up in the stroller for most of our journey since the bus. I thought we'd try out watching the movie about what Ellis Island is, but Mr. Paul would have none of it - he was HUNGRY and Cheerios just weren't cutting it. So we got a new diaper, some more food, and headed back to the boat. Story of our day, we got there just as they lifted the gangplank. So we took the opportunity to go find the names of family members on the Wall of Honor. Mom, Dad and Dan's eldest brother all have their names on the wall because they all immigrated to America. We had just enough time for a photo, some visits with a few bug friends in line, an unfortunate incident with a random peanut M&M found on the ground, before boarding the very last ferry for the day back to Manhattan. Once back to Manhattan, we had a little dinner, then started back on the subway. It was way past bedtime by the time we got on the bus home. Paul was a little crazy and thrashed dangerously in the seat. We at last made it home and everyone headed straight for bed. The next day, we did absolutely nothing because I was truly whipped!

CSI Staten Island

It has been a busy month with lots of exciting events, but our most recent adventure was the funniest in a while, so I'm starting there. The nights have been growing colder, so I've brought in my herb garden. While watering a couple of nights ago, I noticed that one of my basil plants had been completely skeletonized. I immediately contacted Detective Penny so she could help me locate the culprit and save the remainder of our plants before they were all gone.

Penny donned my headlamp to get a closer view of the evidence. She found more than one plant had been victimized. There were also a number of other interesting clues.

 Frass: On the table beneath the nibbled leaves was a scattering of small black pellets. Apparently, our herbivore was not potty trained. He had made his way along a pretty long section of plant based on the digested material left behind.

 Exoskeletons: There were a series of white shed skins on the undersides of several leaves. There appeared to be several different sizes. Each seemed to  have a nice pair of jumping legs, though it was hard to identify them to species.

Penny went to the dinner table with her notebook and drew some great pictures of our evidence, took down some key notes, and began formulating her hypothesis about our intruder. After extensive deliberation, Detective Penny concluded that we must be looking for a caterpillar. I tried to convince her it should be something more like a grasshopper or leafhopper or something, but she wouldn't buy it. She got the headlamp back on and started the search for our elusive herbivore. We were unsuccessful in our hunt, though.

Thankfully, Daddy was on the job and spotted something suspicious when he woke up the next morning. There in the curtains adjacent to the plants was a chubby little caterpillar ensconced in a silken protective sleeve. We're not quite sure what the best thing to do would be. For now, the little bugger doesn't appear to be going anywhere, so his sentence is on hold. Hopefully he doesn't have any friends lurking about still.