Why all the preparation?
The National Weather Service is predicting another windy night tonight, hitting just around midnight. There's a storm that's going to brush our area but head into Canada. Because a lot of the power outages were fixed with temporary measures, and because a lot of trees have sustained a fair amount of damage in the last windstorm, there's a good chance the power can go out again.
I've got my fingers crossed that it won't since my part of the county was spared most of the damage in the original storm. But I worry about other trees that may fall in the gusts. It shouldn't be too bad -- only between 20 and 40mph, nothing like the 70+mph or whatever it was that we sustained in the last storm.
I really hope the power stays on this time. There are still people without power, nearly a week after the storm hit. If we lose power, I would assume those that never had their power restored would still take priority, which means it could take days for the power company to get back to us. Plus those poor guys on the lines have been working for over a week (we had a mini windstorm the day before the big one hit, and there were outages then too) with very little rest, in pretty nasty weather, cold and wet and rainy and windy. I'm really hoping that the storm passes us by mostly for their sakes.
The island just to the east of me has quite a few people still without power. It sort of makes me giggle because it's where all the rich folks live, the ones that aspire to be like those on Mercer Island, where the really rich folk in Seattle live. When you go to the island to shop, the natives won't acknowledge you because you're not "one of them." It's like you have a brand on your forehead: Not an Islander. There is only one bridge connecting the northern tip of the island to the north end of my peninsula, although it would make a huge amount of sense from a logical standpoint to build a bridge from the southern end of the island to the mainland as well.
Why won't they build a bridge?
Why, they don't want the riff-raff from that part of the mainland on their island!!! There are sailors and druggies and poor people and the homeless on the mainland that must not sully the shores of the island!
They ought to just blow up the bridge and make it a true island. See how long those rich people last stewing in their own juices...
But then I'm evil.
Anyhooooo, with five days left before Christmas, guess what I did today?? Yes, I went shopping! But not for gifts; I got all those already. When you have to mail all of your gifts to other parts of the country, you can't be a last-minute shopper.
My friend J had to drop one of her kids off at a babysitting job, and then the other kid did some volunteer work at their church, which left just Grace and me and J! We went to breakfast at Shari's, the local northwest version of Denny's, which was quite good. Grace ate an entire kids' platter, consisting of hashbrowns, scrambled eggs, a sausage link, a strip of bacon, and toast. She then proceeded to eat half my sunny-side-up egg and two of J's pancakes.
She's only TWO!!!
J and I headed to Macy's because she had to return a shirt she bought her husband, and I found some awesome deals. We picked her daughter up from her babysitting job, grabbed lunch at Subway (yum!), and headed back to the mall, where we proceeded to spend at least an hour in Mervyn's. Our location is going out of business, to be replaced by Kohl's, so again I found some awesome deals. My favorite thing I bought is a gorgeous buttondown shirt. It's striped in purple and black and white and some other colors, but it looks smashing on me. I think I'll wear it Christmas Day.
My stepmom has forbidden me from leaving the house tomorrow. My Christmas present is arriving by UPS, and even though I have assured her that the UPS truck won't show up until at least 5 or 6pm, she still wants me home so it doesn't sit out on the porch. I won't be going to Cabin Fever tomorrow, but I figure Grace got plenty of exercise running amok through the mall today!
I just checked WeatherBug, and we've already gotten a gust of 21mph. Let's just hope it doesn't get any stronger!
*crosses fingers*