bundled up

we were much luckier than many when it came to weather from the big storm..... flurries, high winds, very cold.... but that's it.  it is raw outside, and the wood stove has been going nonstop.  but we have power, we have food, we have water, we have our people.  thinking of those less fortunate and trying to imagine (but not letting myself dwell on it because truly, who would that serve?) the heartbreak that comes with having your world turned upside down by a natural disaster.

mike is on his way up to new jersey with a car full of chain saws and a couple of generators.  he'll get in around 2 or 3am.  "in" being at his parents' house, where electricity has been coming and going.  mostly going.  apparently there are trees down everywhere and no generators to be found.  quite literally.  his aunt and uncle drove 3 hours away to buy a used one from someone off of craigslist.  of course the price was jacked up ridiculously high.  how sad.  he is going up to help friends and family remove trees from their yards/driveways/decks so that they don't have to pay someone else triple what they should.  friends with a new baby will be getting one of the generators.  don't know who the other is for.  mike's dad said to bring it up just in case.  surely there is someone who needs it.

this development, of mike going away for four days, just came up around lunch today.  a few hours before it happened.  on my way home from work I was feeling sorry for myself.  "oh poor me, tired and hungry with no one at home to help me make dinner/start a fire/clean the house/tend to claire, for the next several days.  and it's cold and windy and all I want to do is hunker down."  or something like that.  but then I watched the news, as I occasionally do when there are big things going on.  I saw photos of a  168' long boat washed up onto a new york city street, saw photos of flooded subways, of blocks of homes burned to the ground, of a once beloved boardwalk completely underwater, of families crying out for loved ones.

and then I stopped feeling sorry for myself.  and started feeling so very grateful.  for all that I have, and for the man I'm married to, who, especially when something big happens, can be the most dependable and selfless person I know.