Like Living in an Action Flick

      Standing duty sucks for all the obvious reasons.  It's a super long shift and I have to spend the night away from my family.  That's softened a little by the fact that I have the most considerate husband in the world who does things like bringing me my favorite Veggie Massaman Curry for dinner and bringing the kidders to visit me so I can say goodnight - even IF Flintstone was more interested in running around chasing june beetles than cuddling mommy :-P.  But still, one year ago tonight, I was giving birth to my amazing little man and now I'm sitting alone in the security center facing a possibility of 3 hours of sleep if I'm lucky.  Duty sucks. 

      But there are still a couple things I like about standing duty.  It gives me a chance to catch up on things that I just can't prioritize otherwise.  Blogging.  Facebook.  Calling and emailing friends.  Tonight, I called a very good friend of mine who I haven't had the chance to have a good conversation with in at least a couple months.

      And holy cow, am I glad I called her!  She had one of the most exciting stories I've heard in a long time.  Scary, too, but since everyone is fine, mostly just exciting.  Remember the house up in the Catskills that we love to spend time at?  Well aparently Hurricane Irene slammed RIGHT. INTO. IT. 

      In a very serious way.

     Remember the crick we played in?

This shallow little babbling brook?

It swelled to an absolute torrent that took out countless bridges, knocked houses off their foundations, and carved a path of outright destruction miles long.

Remeber these beautiful, picturesque rocks we climbed and reclined on?

Gone.  They were straight up swept away.  Seriously.

And all the trees lining the yard and the river (on the right below)? 

Also gone.  Just gone, along with all the ground they were growing in.

 Just to give you a feel for how far below their driveway/bridge the crick normally is:

 And the bridge is now gone.  Swept away.



      It was a crazy story to hear her tell.  My friend, VespaLaw and her husband SoHoJujitsu had gone up to the Catskills house with a very pregnant woman and her husband.  The City was supposed to get slammed by Irene, the Catskills were just supposed to get rain.

      In the morning, SoHoJujitsu decided to drive a few miles down the road to check on the bridge that connected them to the rest of the world because, while their driveway bridge was well above the waterlevel, the main bridge to town was much lower and sometimes got covered in water.

      When he left their house, there were still at least 5 feet between the crick and their driveway bridge.  He drove just a couple miles down to the main bridge to find that it was already covered in a couple inches of water.  He turned around to go back and saw a group of young girls running scared up the road. 

      The house they had been staying at had been torn from its foundation and fallen into the crick.  They were terrified.  SoHoJujitsu helped them to a neighbor's house then went to back up and head home.  But the car wouldn't back up.  In just the few minutes it had taken to safely deliver the girls to the neighbors' house, the water had risen almost to the doors of the car.

      Not wanting to get swept away, SoHoJujitsu made a snap decision.  He jumped from the car and took off running, up the mountain, toward their house.  It was a terrifying situation.  He was barely ahead of the flood.  The ground was liquifiing and giving out beneath his feet.

       Back at the house, VespaLaw was scared.  Her husband should only have been gone for a few minutes, but the time was dragging on.  There is no cell phone reception at the Catskills house, so it was a tense waiting game with a hysterical pregnant woman and her less than useful husband.

      SoHoJujitsu scrambled, ran, and climbed as fast as he could.  Eventually, he made it back to their house, but the driveway bridge was already gone.  He was stranded on the other side.  In the torrential rain and wind, with huge trees falling left and right and massive chunks of land falling into the crick - now a raging river - and being swept away, he waited and paced.  Once VespaLaw saw him out there, he could hear her screaming to him - trying to communicate with him over the fury.

      It was more than 7 hours after he had left before things calmed down enough for him to make his way to a neighbors' much bigger bridge which he was able to cross using construction poles like ski poles.

      They were stranded there for 4 days before the National Guard could get in and evac them.

      Does that not sound exactly like something out of an action movie?  And a really good one, too.  I am so very, very thrilled that my friends are ok.  I am so happy that SoHoJujitsu is as fit as he is (he just won two gold medals in Jujitsu), or he may have been swept away.  I'm happy that no one was hurt and everyone came out fine.  I'm excited to hear that my friends, who have been married for more than 10 years, are even closer than they have ever been before.

      I'm sad for the destruction to the property.  A lot of us have wonderful memories in that place.  But nothing compares to the beauty of everyone coming out unscathed.  I suppose we'll just have to go up and make more memories.  Like building a new bridge!  MacGyver is certainly qualified to design one!

      Standing duty sucks.  But I am super glad I was able to catch up with VespaLaw.   Holy cow!

This Summer's MI Recap

      Because I promised a cheerful post to make up for my bitch-fest this morning.

      The MI trip was - as always - amazing.

      After the first marathon driving session (during which I filmed my first ever VLOG that no one commented on because it was boring as hell and completely pointless *pout*), we stopped at a waterpark hotel in Indiana for one last blast before dropping Punky off at the bad place.  Great fun was had by all.

 Punky wasted no time at all making a new boyfriend.  Cripes I am screwed when this kid gets a little older.  The child has been picking up boys left and right since she was 6.

All that fun can be exhausting!  After I took this picture, I sat down in the chair next to them, and I passed out, too  for about 40 minutes.  (Yes, it's a disposable diaper.  The cloth ones are a pain on the road.  We switched right back to cloth when we got to MI, though, because the chemical monstrosities gave Flintstone diaper rash.)

      We dropped Punky off (which will get it's own post - like I said, this post is supposed to be a cheerful one), and continued on to MI.  The first couple days were a little rough becasue Flintstone decided to sprout four new teeth the moment we arrived so we just laid low and relaxed a lot.  After those teefies popped through, though, everything was perfect.

Recovering from the trip.

  

 There was a LOT of swimming in the crick.  Flintstone LOVED it.  He does the most adorable little baby swim the second he gets in the water.  I really need to post a video.  As soon as he's in the water, he paddles with his arms and kicks his legs like mad.  MacGyver calls it the Polywog.  It is super adorable and he love, love, loves doing it.  Little FishBaby. 

 

Flintstone's favorite toy the whole trip was my mom's yellow colander.  He had no end of fun chewing on it, dragging it around the house, and, best of all, putting it on his head (and mine)!

 Sirius also loved the crick.  She looked like a beaver swimming around in the crystal clear water (even though it doesn't look that way in this picture).  And it was highly comical when she'd get caught in the current.

 Flintstone loved his uncle Boo so much that Uncle Boo is going to come stay with us for a while and take care of him!

 There was much imbibing of beer and wine.  MacGyver even built a beer "cooler" in the crick out of rocks.

 These beautiful damselflies were everywhere down by the crick.  I wish there had been a way to capture it, but even video wouldn't do justice to the beauty of it.  The sound of the water gurgling over the rocks; bright green leaves of the thick foliage overhanging the water, creating dancing patches of light and shadow; and all over among the leaves these beautiful, shiny creatures, jeweled shades of blue, turqoise, green, and olive fluttered around on velvety black wings.  It was perfect.  And MacGvyer and I did manage to slip away one day and take full advantage of the romance of it all . . .

 We also went to visit my dad who has moved a couple hours away from my mom.  We played horse shoes and a whole lot of Outburst, and let me tell you, the version of Outburst from 1988 is a heck of a lot harder! 

      Another big development on this trip:  Flinstone started walking!  Now, he's been able to take a few steps here and there for a couple of months now, but we all know that's not really walking, and I really thought he was going to wait a while before he started really toddling because he seemed so content to just crawl, but after only a day or two at Nan's house, the kid was off like a shot, walking everywhere.  Probably because there was so much new fun and exciting things to get into and do.  Like eating the dirt out of the potted plants.

      He is my big walking man.  Who I've recently started calling MonChiChi, for whatever reason.

      I expect to do one or two more posts about the trip - about Punky's adventures and so on, but for now, that's it.  Back to the grind - and let me tell you, an amazing trip home like that makes the day to day crap here seem a whole lot less pleasant.  I am very seriously looking at the "next step" right now.

V is ofr Vacation VLOG

      We got back from our wonderful, awesome, fun, and relaxing trip to Michigan at around 5 this morning.  And let me tell you, the last 20 miles was a s t r e t c h.  But we're home and settled in now.  Flintstone even let me sleep until 8:30 this morning.  ;-)

      I have mountains of stuff I want to post (as always), but I also have a house full of baggage that needs to be unpacked and some major decompressing to do.  So in lieu of a real post, here is my first ever Cheap Wine and Cookies VLOG.  I have to admit I was seriously considering not posting it.  I look like hell and it's boring as all get out.  Honestly, I'm not a big fan of VLOGs.  But what the hell.  It's not like I'm trying to impress people with my blog, and those of you who like to pick apart my every move will pick and pick no matter what I post, so here you go:




And if, by some miracle of attention span, you made it through that one without glazing over and passing out, I'll throw this little bonus piece in.  This is why one should not do VLOGs - or any kind of video, really - with uninvited "guests" present:



(By the way, I didn't really do anything illegal.  And even if I did, there is absolutely no way to prove it in court ;-))

I'm looking forward to being back on a regular blogging schedule soon, not to mention catching up on what everyone else has been up to.  There's no way in heck I'm going to have time to go back and read everyone's blogs covering the last two weeks, so if you've posted anything particularly exciting or entertaining while I've been away, please drop it in the comments so I can check it out.  It's an invitation to free self promotion!

And if you're looking for something new to read, check out the posts people recommend in the comments!