Hurricane Irene

So we're some of the lucky ones who got to view this whole experience as a fun diversion and nothing more, at least as of now.

For the past two days there has been constant news reporting of evacuations and preparations. We didn't know quite what to be concerned about in Englewood, NJ. Our biggest worry was that a tree could fall on the house, and secondary concerns included lowing power or having the basement flood.

So we cleared all our heavy items that were outside and put them in the garage, we raised up things in the basement that we didn't want to get soaked, we loaded up on water and food. We very rarely cook meat, but I bought some free range chicken back at Pesach. Worried that it might spoil if we lost power, we cooked it on Friday and ate it through Shabbat. (Mostly just U. and ND ate it. I'm not so into meat, although I was at least glad it was more ethical meat.)

Last and most exciting preparation was sleeping in the downstairs guest room rather than the upstairs bedrooms for fear, again, of a tree falling on the house or in very extreme circumstances, a window shattering.

Woke up to find the air conditioning still running, a light still on in the bathroom. I turned on the radio and heard a static-like silence for a moment, than realized it was just a contestant taking his time to solve a problem on the Weekend Puzzle. Looked outside, some tree limbs are suspended in the power lines above our house, but no damage. Next door, on the other hand, a huge limb knocked down power and blocked the neighbor's driveway. There but for the grace of G-d... Note the 2 photos. The first is our house. The second, our neighbor's.

Spending the day indoors away from any last limbs cracking and getting all kinds of things done together.