.......

SO THEN: 

I feel, Reader Dear, as though I've performed a public service to the folks in my area!
I OVER-PREPPED for Sandy!  In a perverse way, I knew (I just knew) that if I were to do enough nail-biting, and scurry around enough, and work diligently enough at attempting to provide for heat and light and water and food for days and days without electricity, THEN Sandy would relax, not thrash about so much, and leave my whole neighborhood  (if not the whole eastern seaboard) unscathed!

It's why I bought the headlamp, the batteries, the matches, the bananas (well, I guess the bananas were just an impulse buy, to be honest)








It's why I filled every pitcher and pitcher-like container I could find with potable water (Really, Mr. Webster, "potable" was the best you  could do?!)

It's why I scrounged for buckets, and every bucket-like container I could find, and filled with water to make our pots "potable"  (Ahem, Reader Dear, if you know what I mean)

It's why I couldn't leave well-enough alone (well, I did get that recorded message from the electric company, warning me that power could be lost for up to a week!)  Why at 3:35 in the afternoon,  I drove through the already inclement weather to the Dollar General Store and  purchased a Sandy-sized blue plastic tub and a few extra buckets (The wind picked up, Reader Dear, as I wielded that cumbersome load to the car) 

Then, too, it's why I cleared from the freezer all partial loaves of bread, and tins of coffee, and odds and ends that really didn't have to stay frozen, and filled umpteen plastic bags with water to make chunks of ice  (I was already mourning the possible loss of my chopped red peppers [why I scampered back again and again to add more would-be ice]).



It's why I begged of the yard man to stop by an Amish store and bring me some oil for my small brass lamp.  ("There's some left in a bottle I've got here.  It's called, 'ultra-pure smokeless and odorless candle and lamp oil, ninety-nine percent pure liquid wax paraffin'.  So get that, okay?" I instructed.  "But don't get too big of a bottle!* ) 

It's why, Reader Dear, I had to check facebook every fifteen minutes to keep an eye on Sandy as she whirled into the Outer Banks and the Tidewater area of Virginia. 

 And...goodness me, I was nervous as a cat (it might have been the two cups of coffee)

Just before going to bed, I said to the yard man, "Can't you bring in some wood to stack on the hearth, just in case?" 
("No!" he replied, "It's right there on the porch!")

That, Reader Dear,  was my final humanitarian effort to save the east coast from Sandy
(much as I prevented a total collapse of the nation during Y2K).

.......

Pin a medal on me!  I woke this morning to calm and quiet.  No wind.  Not much rain.  Just a cloudy sky.  Hardly any real damage in the county (well, none that I know of at this time).  You're welcome, Reader Dear!**

**I am really very sorry, New York and New Jersey. And all the people without power everywhere.  And those who had flooding and damage. And great loss.  (I did my best.)

......

*(He brought an enormous bottle of Patio Torch Fuel.  "They said it wouldn't smell very good," he said, "but at least it will work.")
Give him some credit.