The Hurricane of Cincinnati

I never thought I would see the day that the news reports a hurricane hitting Cincinnati. That is one of the advantages to living in such a random, middle of land kind of place. One does not expect strong winds coming in and destroying everything.

However, it happened this past Sunday. Nick was at the Bengals game (not enjoying himself), the kids were napping, and I was enjoying having the tv all to myself. Thanks to the magic of the DVR and a free movie channel weekend, I was catching up on one of the numerous movies we saved. I kept getting annoyed because the Direct TV would randomly go out. I heard a little wind and figured that had something to do with it. A few hours later, I would gladly have that be my biggest problem.

Eventually the winds picked up, sending everything in our backyard to the front of our neighbor's house. Almost half of the houses in our neighborhood lost siding and I kept hearing the continual sound of nearby sirens. We lost all power and I thought, "It won't be too long until it comes back on." This foolish thought came from experience of losing power with any bit of wind and it usually being returned in a timely manner.

Well, that was Sunday afternoon. We received our power on Wednesday afternoon.

I really cannot complain about this. First of all, just losing power is not really that big of a deal. Many people suffered house damage, injuries and even a few deaths. Secondly, we have family nearby so we were able to store and save our food at their house. Also, the weather was absolutely perfect. Not too hot and not too cold-just keeping the windows open at night was lovely.

What is ironic is that I found more contentment this week during the outage than when the power came back on. True, it is a bit of a challenge not having power with two children. I never realized until this week how much I take advantage of the Noggin channel to keep sanity in our house. And it does become a challenge coming up with healthy lunches that are not from the fridge. However, we did play many (and I stress the word many) games of Candyland, Pretty Pretty Princess, soccer, hide and seek, and my personal favorite, Flash.

(Flash is a game that Abby made up. She runs as fast as she can across the house and we are instructed to say, "What was that flash? I didn't even see anyone, they were so fast!" Caleb is also a fan. We, of course, are fans because it requires us to sit in one place while they wear themselves out.)

This blackout also gave us fun times with our neighbors. If you live in a neighborhood, you know what a bonding experience events like these can be. Gone are the judgments of loud cars, odd lawn cutting hours, and age differences. A blackout brings people together. We were all bonded together in unity against the wind who dared to take away our luxuries. Instead of watching football on the new HDTV that sits in our living room, Nick had a better time watching it on a tiny, tiny tv our neighbors had hooked up to their car. And in place of watching mindless tv, I had a great talk with all the women about the most random things that would never come up in our usual "Hi, how are you's?"

My personal favorite thing of this week was reading by candlelight/flashlight while the wind blew gently through our house. The sound of the wind in the trees always reminds me of being at camp, which is about the closest thing to Heaven I have found.

All this being said, my thoughts are with those who are still without power and who have suffered much worse. And my thoughts are also with those who have never gone without electricity-it's a lesson worth experiencing.