More or less in one piece

Thank you, well-wishers! The menagerie and I made it through the never-ending storm that was Wilma. Foxy woke me up at about 2:30am when it started to roll into town and we stayed up until it died down to 45 mph gusts more than 12 hours later. Lord, I thought it would never leave. It is loads of fun to traverse three flights of stairs on a broken foot to let out a small dog with an even smaller bladder every few hours while a storm rages outside. Loads.

Damage was surprisingly bad, considering that everyone thought this thing would just be a tropical storm when it hit here. Instead, we got a Category 3 storm that had a nasty "backside", as the newspeople kept saying (ha, Wilma had a fat ass). Foxy peed by a tree about three hours after the storm made landfall; two hours after that, the tree wasn't there any more. Power was knocked out all over the place, of course, and traffic lights dangled precariously from wires, if they weren't sitting in millions of pieces on the ground. Unfortunately, not every driver gets the whole "treat all intersections as a 4-way stop" thing, so driving to the store for more booze really is a life or death matter.

Hanging out at home in the dark hasn't exactly been my cup of tea, so this morning I packed up my essentials and my dog (who is also an essential) in order to spend the night at the nature center. The nature center, it should be noted, is usually the first to get power back after a storm, not because anyone thinks we are important, but because we are across the street from a prison and a mental institution/drug rehab center. Yes, we are in a great neighborhood; it's these neighbors, though, that allow us to be back in business.

Anyway, as I packed up my belongings by candlelight I knew -- I KNEW -- that by doing so I was guaranteeing that power would come back on today. Periodically, I called home to see if my answering machine picked up. It didn't all day until 4:55pm. Admin Assistant Extraordinaire compared it to waiting for a meal at a restaurant; as soon as you go outside for a cigarette, your meal arrives. Not one to favor the cancer sticks, I only kinda agree with her analogy ("Ewww, why would you want to smoke before a meal you are paying for?").

Since I went to all the work of planning my stay, I just decided to sleep here at work anyway. That's right: I chose to forgo my own bed in order to spend 36 hours at work. Woo hoo! Keep in mind that I did carefully plan this trip, so I have a lovely bottle of Pinot Noir sitting just to the right of my keyboard (okay, a half bottle of Pinot Noir). I have a grant due tomorrow and loose ends to tie up for our fundraiser this weekend, so more time in this god-forsaken hell hole (was that a little harsh?) is actually necessary.

The good ol' hell hole, by the way, actually sustained more damage during this storm than it did during Charley; it must have been that wide backside. We all reported to work as usual on Tuesday morning, and since I can't walk, I dispatched my lackeys out to the trail to check out the extent of the damage. I was already in a foul mood Tuesday morning because I lost my painkillers in my apartment that morning. (On the bright side, I have painkillers somewhere in my apartment for later enjoyment.) Plus, my lame-ass injury has made me feel even more useless than normal; I wanted nothing more than to clear debris (not "brush" like the prez), but I couldn't get out there, so that pissed me off. I'm also one of those people that likes to see things with my own eyes rather than listen to someone else's interpretation. Control issues? Perhaps, but for good reason. Here's why:

When the naturalists returned from the trail, I asked, "How was the boardwalk?" The condition of our 1/2-mile boardwalk trail is very, very important, for it is the site of our fundraiser this weekend, expected to draw about 2,000 people; I had to decide first thing Tuesday morning if we could still hold our event so that I could alert our sponsors and the media.

The naturalists said that the boardwalk was fine; trees had fallen, but the boardwalk was fine. So, I called up our people and our bicoastal director, who was dealing with major damage at his West Palm Beach house, to let them know that our event could still happen; the boardwalk didn't sustain any damage.

At the end of the day, one of the naturalists showed me the digital pictures they had taken on the boardwalk that morning. Imagine my horror when I saw picture after picture of railings ripped from the boardwalk by massive cypress trees (see above).

"'Fine?' The boardwalk is 'fine', you say?!? What about the railings? There are no railings preventing people from falling into the swamp!"

"Well, you asked about the boardwalk, not about the railings."

Oh, my bad. I assumed that since the railings are attached to the boardwalk that they form one entity, but apparently I am alone in that assumption.

And this is why I don't believe anything anyone here says.

At any rate, all of our outdoor animals survived being locked in the men's room for the duration of the storm. Don't worry, we didn't let the hawks, owls, bobcat, raccoon, and friends run wild in there; they were all in individual carriers. Well, at least that's what the people who work here tell me. Still, everyone made it through okay. I will be a happy, happy girl if I don't have to do another one of these EVER again. Hurricanes are a fucking pain in my foot.