More weather

Wednesday, 5:56 pm

By Kate

May

25

2005

I tried to go a whole day without complaining about the weather, but I Can’t Do It. The only good thing I can say about this mess is that it’s not snow.

The wind has been howling since yesterday morning. We’ve had power, then we haven’t had power. Then we have, then we haven’t. I have the candles already strategically placed for the next outage tonight, which seems likely. The house still creaks and groans and when the higher gusts hit, the whole house shudders. The sound of the wind is starting to make me a little crazy. It’s loud.

Along with the wind comes the driving rain that has found ways into the house where I didn’t know there were cracks. I could not believe my eyes when I saw water coming in around my sliding glass door. That has never happened before. It’s fairly new and it’s tightly sealed. But the wind and rain are fierce and relentless. My house is beginning to suffer from storm fatigue. I don’t remember a storm quite like this one—and I was here for the Halloween nor’easter (The Perfect Storm) several years ago. This one just goes on and on and on....and on. It’s been raining like this since Saturday!

I was astonished at the state of affairs outside this morning. The winds had stripped leaves off many trees in the night. The streets were covered with shredded leaves. Not just covered, they were literally papered with shredded leaves. And my poor lilac has maybe six leaves left. The flower buds are still there, but most of the leaves are gone. I’ve never seen that before. This wasn’t supposed to be a hurricane for cryin’ out loud.

Did I mention cold? Still in the 40s, but with wind chills in the mid-30s. It feels like December.

And let’s mention Terry. She had to go really badly last night. I just opened the door and she bolted out, neither of us thinking clearly, obviously. The wind literally picked her up and slammed her into deck railings. One very surprised and upset dog, let me tell you. I had to help her back in the house so the wind wouldn’t sweep her off the deck. Forget taking care of business. For the first time ever, I put papers down on the kitchen floor for her. Neither of us liked that idea, but one does what one has to do. I had to drag her out of the house this morning. She wasn’t going out that door under her own power. No way. There were no further mishaps, fortunately.

This is for the birds. Speaking of birds, I haven’t seen any in a while. They’ve probably all been blown clear to Ohio by now. It is just so interminably ugly and dark and windy and wet and dark and cold and dark. Make it stop. We desperately need sunshine and warmth, you know, like spring.