Friday Five

1. The night before we left on vacation, there was a huge storm. Rusty was asleep and I was beginning to doze off when I began to hear the sounds of a storm. At first I dismissed it as a normal thunderstorm, but the howling wind kept getting louder and louder. I sat up in bed, unease giving way to worry. Rusty stirred and I asked him, "Do you hear that?" I got out of bed and grabbed my iPhone to look up local weather warnings as the wind continued to roar.

"Is that a tornado," Rusty wondered out loud? That's all I needed to hear. I speed walked to that bathroom, still fumbling with my iPhone in search of information. The wind raged as I sat shaking in the still damp tub with Rusty crouched beside me. I prayed for safety as branches and twigs hit the roof for what felt like an eternity. The power went out at some point. As the terrible wind finally died down, I had the presence of mind to find our local news station's website on my iPhone and touch Listen Live.

I used the light of my iPhone to find the camping light we had recently purchased on a whim (or what it?) which Rusty then used to find our big flashlight. He walked around our house, checking for damage and then shone the powerful flashlight out the front and rear doors. We had lost the top half of one of our 100' tall trees. Thank you, Lord, that the tree fell in the yard and not on our house. We shut the house up tight and let Gus out of his room, since we were now wide awake.

According to the news, there were no tornadoes, just a crazy storm with 80 mph straight winds. We got power back on late the next day (Saturday) before we had to leave on vacation (thank you, God). And the tree? It would have to wait until we got home from vacation in...

2. ...Virginia Beach! Ah, yes. I love getting away for a few days where the biggest decision is whether to start our day by floating in the pool or enjoying the beach. We all need that kind of relaxation every now and then, don't we?

3. The other important decisions while on vacation revolve around food. What should we do for lunch? PB&J in our room or eat out? Where should we go for dinner? Most of the places we went were successes. In fact, the only bomb was the Chinese place, where nearly everything was so overcooked it was nearly inedible. I still don't know what was in those deep-fried dumplings (they are supposed to be pan-fried, people, PAN-fried)! :shudder: (And no, I don't mean what kind of animal meat...they were meatless.)

All the other food we ate was fabulous - gyros and stuffed grape leaves at Ammos; topped crab flounder with a white wine lemon sauce at Il Giardino; steamed king crab legs at Captain George's, and table-side guacamole and fish tacos at the Side Street Cantina. Drool.

4. We came home on Thursday to a lonely 11-month old kitten, piles of laundry, and the tree in our front yard. On Saturday, Rusty and our brother-in-law, Barry, fired up chain saws while my father-in-law and I carried logs, limbs, and sticks. With their help, we got it completely cleaned up even though it was so hot I thought I was back in tropical Taiwan.

5. The only bad part about our vacation (beside the cost of it) is that Rusty ended up with swimmer's ear. Ouch! His right ear began hurting enough on Sunday to cause him to ask me to make him a doctor's appointment on Monday. That is saying something about the amount pain and irritation that Rusty felt, folks!