November 12th, 2020

Soooo Tropical Storm Eta has gone on her merry way to wreck havoc elsewhere.  We actually did well through the storm.  Although the lights flickered throughout the day, we never actually completely lost power.  So that's a good thing.

And while we saw videos of crazy waves and flooding at the jetty (which the city wisely closed) and I'm sure there was probably some flooding in other low lying areas, we seem to be high and dry. Which is funny because technically our house sits in a flood zone.  We are grateful.

The news reported this morning that the storm made landfall an hour or so  north of us.  And while my heart goes out to anyone affected by the storm - flooding, wind damage, power outages - I am counting my lucky (thus far) stars that it didn't happen here.

I went out early this morning to start cleaning up.  All of the really big stuff I picked up and hauled around to the side of the house for the lawn guys to take away at their next visit.  The little stuff, I swept back into the lawn. Yeah, I'm lazy.

And while I was dragging branches and fronds out of the shrubbery along the fence on one side of the house I found a large American flag.  Ok that explains the big empty metal pole in front of the house,

Yesterday, of course, was Veterans day.  And the day before that was the Marine Corps Birthday.  Two rather patriotic days of note.  And, you may recall, way back in the early spring, we signed up for a flag service. It's all run by Veterans who come around and put up flags in front of their members homes (and then of course take them back down afterward) on days like Flag Day, Independence Day and Veterans Day.  I assumed, with the tropical storm and all, that nobody would put up a flag.  And of course I didn't check.  There was no reason to be outside in the torrential rain and driving wind yesterday so I stayed inside where I was warm and dry.

To my surprise, this morning, while on clean up duty, I found the empty metal pole.  Hmmm.  Did they start to put up the flags and then changed their minds?  I didn't give it a lot more thought until I found that poor mangled flag in the bushes.

So I untangled it, shook as much dirt as possible off, gently folded it and put it in a zippy bag and then attached that bag with a twisty tie to the pole with a note (explaining why it was in a bag) for the guys when they come by to pick up.  Probably later today.  Poor flag.

Anyway, so that's it.  Back to "normal".  Whatever that means.  The storm is gone. Hopefully it is the very last one for us in this exceptionally bizarre year.  Honestly, at this point, no matter what happens:   A Blizzard in Miami,  An Alien spacecraft landing, the discovery of a worm hole to the Land of Oz, having a lightening strike on my car or winning the lottery, I don't think I will terribly surprised.  It's just been an entire year of weird.  If something is bizarre or strange or unusual, or unexpected, this is the year for it.  

I'm pretty sure this is it for me this week.  Joy and I are going to at least attempt to hike tomorrow so I will wish you a wonderful weekend and look forward to seeing you again on Monday!