However, this morning the cable was back on, so I’m able to post.

Jay and I took a ride around the Westchase area last night. Things are
slowly starting to return to normal. Local institutions like Randall’s,
Wal Mart and Starbucks (!) remain closed, but McDonald’s, HEB, and
Kroger’s were open for business. More importantly, several gas stations
are open and have fuel. Jay was finally able to fill up his car
earlier yesterday and he reported that the line was only was only
three deep. By last night, lines had returned to almost normal.

I’m dreading my return to work this morning, and it has nothing to do
with the fact that I fell down the stairs this morning (more on that
later). What I’m not looking forward to is having to reassemble my
office. All of us workers stripped our offices bare and placed all the
contents in the center of the building. Putting my computing setup back
together is going to be such a pain! However, I’m grateful that I have
a job to go to and a computing setup to put together, so I’ll just quit
my kveching.

Okay, about the fall down the stairs. Normally, this would have never
happened. You see, I never try to do anything as complicated as
navigating stairs until I’ve had at least one cup of coffee. However,
this morning when I awoke, I put the coffee to brewing and headed
straight upstairs to see if I could get the Internet situation
straightened out. Once my mission was accomplished, I started back
downstairs with my laptop and cell phone clutched in my hands. I’m not
sure how it happened, but the heel of my right foot slid out from under
me as I stepped onto the last landing. My left leg twisted back
underneath me and I unceremoniously bumped down the stairs on my
behind, dragging my left leg under my not-inconsiderable bulk. Ouch! At
first, I thought I had broken something in my left foot but it turns
out it’s just badly bruised. My right hip and leg took the brunt of the
blow and they really hurt. But I’m alive and nothing’s broken – just
late for work.

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Wow, we’ve heard from friends and family all over the U.S. wanting to
know if we’re alright. Mostly Southern states – Louisiana, Mississippi,
Florida, Georgia. Spent most of the day just answering the phone!

Jen and I went out cruising tonight since Jay had told us earlier that
he saw a McDonald’s open. He said when he was out (around dinner time)
that the line of cars looked to be a 45 minute wait. When we got there,
it looked like a 20 minute or so wait, but we weren’t hungry enough to
wait that long.

While we were checking out the neighborhood, we came across a gas
station that was selling gas. Lines stretched down the street and the
police were there directing traffic. Absolutely insane.

I’ll post more tomorrow when I have more news and am more awake.

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Funny what you’ll miss when you can’t have it, eh? I’m enjoying a ham
and cheese sandwich that would be a lot better if we had mustard.
(Still in the fridge back at the apartment.) Still, it’s pretty good,
even if it’s not Wendy’s.

Jay and I drove around earlier to see what could be seen. It seems the
worst that the area experienced was a couple of small signs blown down.
Lawns are carpeted with leaves and there’s trash here and there, but
that’s it.

We did see some gas stations open but none that were selling gas. We
stopped at a corner convenience store to get a Coke for Jay – I wanted
a water, but they didn’t have any.

So, all in all, Rita turned out to be a non-event here in west Houston,
and we’re all very thankful for that. We are keeping the others that
were treated less kindly by Rita in our thoughts and prayers.

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This is going to be a brief entry. The winds are at what will be the
worst for the Houston area, and they’re not bad at all. However, we
just lost power momentarily, so I want to get this post up here in case
it goes out again.

We’re in bed listening to the winds and rain. The kids are asleep
upstairs – they’ll probably sleep through it. No branches down, or
anything else to report yet. Let’s hope it stays that way.

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{mosimage}The sky is starting to get dark, and there are gentle breezes
blowing in. Even though the hurricane is nowhere near us (and doesn’t
really appear that it ever will be), CenterPoint Energy is reporting
outages across the system. Go figure!

The storm continues to move more and more to the east. The last I heard
was that they were predicting a direct hit for Cameron, which is in the
Lake Charles area. I’m starting to think that maybe God does have
something against gambling after all.

Heard from my mom in Orlando. She seemed disappointed that I didn’t
have more to report, although she does sound worried. No reason to
worry, mom! We’re fine and we have all the Double-Stuf Oreos we can eat.

Lots of our neighbors are still here. The neighbors to our left decided
to stay early on; the neigbors to the right tried to leave but after
only getting 39 miles in 11 hours, turned around and came back. The
return trip took them 15 minutes.

Jay and I drove around the Westchase area to see and be seen.
Everything’s closed up, including the 24-hour video places on Hwy. 6. I
brought my camera this time, and will post some of the pics I took. I
was struck by how much construction is going on in this area. The
reason that’s significant is that when the winds do get here (if they
do), those sites are going to be launching all kinds of missles, like
heat-seeking bricks and rocket-propelled 2x4s. Sure would hate to be
living near that!

The most amusing thing I saw while we were out was a panhandler. I
personally think that Houston has a horrid panhandling problem because
there’s always one on every street corner. Today, though, not a one was
to be seen, except on the corner of Wilcrest and Westheimer. I’m
dedicated to my job, too, just not dedicated enough to be out on a
corner with a hurricane on the way.

In any case, I’ll post the pics in an album a little later on tonight. Now I’m finally going to go take my shower.

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There’s an odd glow to the half-light outside my window. Earlier, the
streets were deserted when Jay and I went sightseeing. It’s actually
kind of eerie to see a huge city like Houston looking like a ghost town.

I feel much better about weathering this storm (pun intended) for a
couple of reasons, key among them that Rita has been downgraded to a
Category 3. We live on the very far west side of Houston (just east of
Katy), so I don’t think that it’ll be too bad at all. Honestly, what
concerns me most is the chance of tornadoes.

The breezes haven’t picked up much yet. If one didn’t know a hurricane
was coming, one would swear it was beach weather. Jay’s taking his
second nap of the afternoon and the dog is following suit. The cat has
been asleep on the stairs for hours. (I check every now and again to
make sure she’s breathing. Does any animal sleep more than a cat? What
on earth is she doing that makes her so tired?)

I’m thinking a nap sounds good. I’ve been carrying boxes of books
upstairs to put in the office closet, and then Jay and I rearranged the
furniture in the living room to get it away from the windows. We’re
planning on sleeping out here tonight – thank goodness we have such
comfortable furniture.

The food and water has been placed in one central location, as have the
first aid supplies, candles, batteries, walkie-talkies, tool, pet
supplies, important papers and records, laptops, and of course, work I
brought home from my job. This will speed an evacuation if we need to
leave suddenly.

The worst is supposed to be here this evening. That’s going to stink as
it will be dark. There’s at least a small measure of comfort in being
able to see what’s happening. Before I go to bed tonight, I think I’ll
take KTRH’s advice and wear shoes to “bed”. The rationale is that if
windows break you won’t have to worry about cutting your feet in the
dark.

I’m off to take a nap, then a shower. If the power goes out later tonight, or we lose water, I want to at least be clean.

I’ll post more later.

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I’m watching Fox News, and I just can’t believe that New Orleans is having to suffer again! I’m not sure who I should worry about first. Of course, I’m worried about us, but I’m worried about our family down in that area (Jay’s dad, aunt, cousins, etc.) and Jay’s sister in Mississippi. We heard from her this morning and her town, Pass Christian, is flooded again! Everything that she and her family were able to salvage from the house was placed under the house (it’s on stilts) so that salvage work could begin in a few days. My heart is breaking for them even as we move our valuables to the second floor.

Jay and I made another – probably our last prior to the storm – run to the apartment this morning. The Diamond Shamrock on the corner of Briar Forest and Wilcrest was open again and had gas! Lines stretched from Wilcrest to Kirkwood as people lined up for fuel. We’ve also heard from several of our friends around Houston that they’d found grocery stores open and were able to buy supplies, only to come out and find their cars had been siphoned of gas!

Beltway 8 is flowing again, but we saw several vehicles pulled to the side and abandoned. Presumably they ran out of gas. It’s incredible to me that people that wanted to evacuate and had the means to weren’t able to make it out.

I heard from one of my sisters-in-law in Baton Rouge; she’s boarded up her windows, just in case.

I’ve sent the kids upstairs – they’re bickering. I think that being cooped up is driving them nuts, plus there’s the stress of running around and trying to make preparations.

Lunch is dinging from the microwave so I’m going to enjoy a hot meal while I still can. More later.

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After querying the kids, it turns out that the photos are still in bins in Gavin’s bedroom back at the apartment. I think they’ll be fine there, especially if the storm follows the current projected path, which would put us getting winds at about 60 mph.

I’ve gathered all of our insurance cards, birth certificates, etc., etc., and they’re packed and ready to roll. We have enough food and water to last for several days, lots of candles, and even several flashlights, some batteries, and a battery-operated lantern.

We’re making another run to the apartment in about twenty minutes. We’ll secure the photos while we’re there, and also see if we can find our fire extinguisher. I think this will be our last foray out before the storm.

The boys cleared the yard of projectiles earlier but still have some windows to tape. The breeze is starting to pick up. Better run. Will post more later.

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Well, it’s 4:00 a.m. now. Jay and I got up at 3 to check the news and weather situation. Traffic is better, but to no avail. There’s still not fuel available at any of the points at which we’d need to refuel. So the current thinking is that we’ll weather the storm here in our house.

Wind speeds are predicted to be from 60 to 75 mph in our neck of the woods, so that’s not so bad. We still would have preferred to have been able to evacuate, but you play the cards your dealt, right?

I’m feeling a bit better about the situation now that I have some water put back. It’s been a major concern of mine that there was no bottled water to be had. We were going to store water in the plastic moving bins that we’ve been using, but once those bins were filled it would have been impossible to move them. Luckily, I remembered that we had a ton of plastic containers back at the apartment, so we ran by last night and picked them up. Now they’re filled and in the fridge – and taking up nearly the entire island in the kitchen.

I’d better get some sleep. When we wake up again, we have a lot of work to do. We need to finish taping windows and secure everything loose in the yard. There’s not much there, but we did find some bricks that will need to be put in the garage. Gavin, our 12 year-old, removed the screens from the sliding glass doors, so we’ll put those in the garage as well. We also need to move our furniture away from the windows.

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