Severe Weather

Earlier, I said that one of the weights off of my shoulder is that I feel that I no longer have to plan for special events six months in advance in order to keep them for my little family. (Hubbie and me only, as we never chose to try to have children)

Another weight off of my shoulders, I don't have to include "what about MIL" in my disaster plan.

I don't mean the disaster of MIL herself, but the weather emergency plan. We live on the East Coast which means Hurricanes. Whenever getting our "kits" together and making plans for "what if", I also had to plan for/against her for my "emergency preparedness" routine. We live about 100 miles inland. JB was about 30 miles inland. The biggest damage is usually closer to the coast than JB unless it's a high category when it hits. (Usually confined to the immediate coastal area.) We were actually hit worse than she was in the time we lived here. One pretty bad one hit the coast South of her but the eye made a straight line from the coast to where we live. She just had a lot of rain, but we had trees down all over town, were on emergency power for a week, etc.

She hasn't had one that bad since before I knew her. Lots of people had trees on houses, we were lucky. Our cul-de-sac was blocked so we couldn't get out until the men cut up and move the tree, and we had water get into our basement, but no trees on the house.

We do have a generator. We had one when it was a geeky thing to have one -- before they were popular. I knew that if anything ever happened at JB's house and not at our house, hubbie would be trying to get that generator to them, even though he says that it's too difficult to get back out of the place where we have it. He'd find a way for them. For a long time, was often looking at generators and wanting to get a second one -- in case ours breaks when we need it he claimed. Yea, right! He was looking at smaller ones. We all know that it was so that if something happened, he'd have one to carry to his parents house to use. I told him no, he didn't need it and he never got a second one. Now, (I think I may test the waters and see if he still wants a second one?)

Whenever a hurricane was approaching Hubbie was worrying about her as much as us! It got much worse after evil FIL passed. When Isabel was approaching the east coast and we did not know where it would hit and thought it would be a bad one, he wanted to go get her and bring her to our house. This happened a few months after JB's evil co-hort, my FIL died. When hubbie said he was thinking about going to go get her and bring her back to our house, I told him that I supposed I could find another place to stay. He said "why can't she come stay here for a few days?" I said "she can, but I won't be here." I don't know if he came up with this idea on his own or if it was prompted by her "poor widow me" game. (It's really 50/50!)

He made the right decision. But it did drive me to drinking the next night. He was out that night at a class or meeting or something. I drink very little -- some champagne on New Years Eve and maybe one or two more drinks during the year, but more than half a drink more during the year is a heavy drinking year for me. If I do have a drink, it's usually wine or a mixed drink, almost never beer. That night, I had TWO BEERS.

When Isabel did hit land, she hit hard, but not in either of our areas. JB just got some rain, if that. It only affected me because I had a business trip to Washington DC (Rockville Maryland, actually) the next week and they were hit almost as hard as we got hit by the one I mentioned getting us earlier earlier.

Any other reasons, do you ask, besides the obvious, did I not want her to come stay for "a few days"? I had the fear that the few days would be the rest of her life.

Two side effects of this. First, whenever it comes time to get our emergency plans together, I am checking out what hotels might be available, (though I have a friend I can probably stay with).

The second side effect of this is that I realized during the approach of the storm how little I really care about my HOUSE. It's an OK house, I'll probably live here the rest of my life, but I'm not so attached to it that I cannot part with it and be happy somewhere else. And unlike hubbie, I at the time, had enough money squirreled away that I could have bought another house. I found myself thinking -- if they want it let them have the damn house, but it will be empty. The two of them can enjoy it together. Most of the furnishings are ones bought from my salary while all of his salary was spent on keeping his family together. Some others were hand-me downs/family pieces. What he had when we got married he left in his single-wide which he gave to his Father to rent out.

I even found myself making an exit plan, thinking about what kind of house I wanted if I had to live by myself, etc. It was the second closest that I ever came to thinking about divorce. All of this was the day after he said something about going to get her.

So, when forced to make a choice, he did choose me. Maybe I should have forced him more often?

As I have said before, Thank God Its Over. All of those agonizing thoughts that I had to go through mostly on my own.

Now, I don't have to include "what about MIL" in my disaster plan. How to get my stuff out of the house and where to go if she comes here. She won't be coming here.

To repeat myself from previous posts, I'm so glad it's over. The weight of the world is gone from my shoulders.