Pre-Hurricane Florence Update

For all my out-of-town friends and family hearing about the imminent pummeling of North Carolina by Hurricane Florence and thinking, “North Carolina… doesn’t someone I know live there?” I thought I’d do a quick catch-all update. By the way, thank you for all the kind texts, FB messages, and general checking in. It means a lot that many of you are thinking about me, but also makes me wonder exactly what the hell they are saying on the news. (It has been a while since I’ve been able to watch the news. Like, years.)

To answer the most common question first: I live in Clemmons, just southwest of Winston-Salem, which is about an hour and a half northeast of Charlotte. (John works in a very tall tower in downtown Winston-Salem.) For all intents and purposes, we’re basically in the center of the state.

To answer the second most common question: no, we are not evacuating. The prediction has been anywhere from 3″ to 14″ of rain and “possible flooding.” People around here are expecting the power to go out for up to 6 weeks, based on the bread and bottled water shelves in all our grocery stores right now. In the event that we must leave, we have a full tank of gas and a show-worthy room ready in Tennessee. (I didn’t actually ask, but I assume that’s totally okay, Mom.)

But just so you’re caught up, here’s a quick list of everything you might want to know, or maybe don’t care about, but whatever, I finally have ten minutes to jot it all down. If I don’t make it out alive, you can use this as a “What not to do in preparation for a category 4 hurricane when you are four and a half hour’s drive from the nearest beach.”

1. We’ve gone low-carb in this house so stocking up on bread seems a little worthless. We already had 2.5 tubs of peanut butter. Today I found hot dogs at Harris Teeter which paid me $0.01 to take them home (a weird combo of BOGO + an extra $3 off sticker to sell them quick) so I “bought” 8 packs. Worst case scenario, we survive on Oscar Mayer weiners for at least a week, if we limit Isaiah to one and a half a day.
2. We’re on city water so there isn’t a huge threat of losing water. Our water heater is on gas so there also isn’t a huge threat of cold baths. (I’d like to make this announcement to everyone still bum rushing the Clemmons Walmart. I know you are also on city water. Get a grip.)
3. I completely destroyed our grill the week before school started when not once, but twice, I put meat out there and totally forgot about it and left the house. So we got a new grill for Labor Day and have enough propane to cook outside if necessary. I also successfully gave away the old grill to a complete stranger today because technically, the starter button and flames still work. Trip to the dump averted.
4. In lieu of panic-stockpiling at the grocery store, I instead panic-cleaned my entire house and did all sorts of laundry. I figured if it gets bad enough, there’s a chance we’ll be on TV and I’d sort of want clean underwear in that case, which is totally weird, but also true.
5. I’m going to spend tomorrow uprooting the last of my green tomatoes and praying over my not-yet-ripe-volunteer-squash. Perhaps something will make it out alive. I’m sort of wishing I’d planted rice, but since John doesn’t eat carbs anymore, we don’t really eat rice anymore. C’est la vie.
6. Public school has already canceled classes for Thursday and Friday but our fantastic little private school is hunkering down until we at least see some lightening, which, at this point, isn’t supposed to start before Friday. I’m back in the land of loving my private school parental privileges and will take literally anything to make up for the lack of that school bus.
7. I spent about an hour yesterday filling and freezing various containers of water. I don’t know why and I have no idea what it will accomplish, but the last time we were about to have a major snow storm I did the same thing and then nothing happened, so I’m just trusting the process.
8. Finally, I have a whole bunch of cash, because I’m overdue on paying my kids’ allowance by at least three months and had planned to do it this week. I have successfully put it off again, however, by telling them if this storm hits we’re going to need cash and it would be silly to try to do IOU’s for all that. (Note, by “whole bunch” I mean like $18 in one’s and a couple fivers because my kids only get their age in allowance but we always have to do small bills and change because Dave Ramsay says teach them how to tithe 10% and save 10% and that boils down to nickels and quarters when you are less than 10 years old. If worse comes to worse, we’ll raid the “God” jar because it has been a while since we’ve actually emptied it at church. I think He’d be okay with an emergency loan-back.)
9. The basement has been vacuumed and picked up in the most worst-of-all-cases-scenario that the entire family has to go camp out down there in the middle of the night. I even vacuumed the futon.

Alright. That was a lot. But really, that’s it. We’re mostly okay right now. And don’t be deceived by my tone. I’ve been in a low-grade anxiety attack for going on four days, but this has more to do with the fact that all my usual weekly tasks are now being bombarded by strangers who rarely, if ever, shop at 10am, and the extra traffic that comes with it. Also, I have no idea what is for dinner tomorrow, rain or no rain.

I love you all. Thanks for checking in.