When the Crises Cometh

This has been quite a week... first the earthquake breaking up a work day that was already plenty full of rumblings without a fussy fault line, and now Irene is coming by today, and I need to get ready. She's a pretty demanding visitor; the kind that doesn't just smudge up your guest towels - she's likely to fling all your deck furniture over the edge and crack a few of your windows if she's got a mind to. Like most East Coasters, I scoff at hurricane warnings, because the actual storms are never as bad as they are purported to be.   But this one made me a little more nervous once I heard that the mayor of Ocean City, MD shut down the liquor so that they could actually evacuate people. (I guess you can't get some folks' attention in a crisis if there's a scotch or a stein in the way.)   FEMA suggested some items to have in a home hurricane supply kit, and since I saw this list late last night and the storm's supposed to hit in a few hours, I'm doing triage to see whether I have the right supplies on hand:

• water (one gallon of water per person per day for at least three days) CHECK
• nonperishable food (at least a three-day supply) CHECK, if you count 2 cans of black beans, 1 can of almond pastry filling, 1 bag of brown rice and a box of Grape Nuts cereal.
• flashlight CHECK
• extra batteries Uh-oh
• first aid kit Do Hello Kitty bandaids do the trick?
• battery-powered or hand-crank radio Yikes!
• wrench or pliers to turn off utilities I call points for knowing I have them even if I don't know where they are.
• can opener CHECK, as long as the electricity is still on (well, really...FEMA didn't specify non-electric!)
• local maps Of course... for those intimate neighborhood walks when the wind whips the shoes right off your feet.
• cell phone with chargers, inverter or solar charger WTF - solar charger?

Clearly, I have to make some tracks here to FEMA-tize my bunker for the storm. I wonder if CVS keeps the solar chargers next to the hand-crank radios?

© 2011 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

Happy Campers

I wasn't intending to buy a tent for my living room. Really, I wasn't. But my visiting 5-year-old niece and 8-year-old nephew had been waiting all week to have a sleepover at my house, and when I told them we were going to camp out in my living room the next evening, my niece's face lit up. "In a tent?" she beamed. "No, just on the floor," I said. And then, of course, the biggest sucker for a cute kid ever, I scooted over to Target and bought one that night.

It said "two-person tent" on the label and I just assumed that it would be one of those tiny, 3-foot-high tents, nice and snug, just perfect for a couple of kiddies. (Yes, I know, the actual dimensions were probably on the label, too, but I have never been accused of being overly observant when it comes to things that require assembly.) So when I started putting it together, the flexible poles stretched across the living room floor and through the dining room, and after wrestling with nylon and metal and elastic, I eventually had a room-within-a-room, fit for... well, fit for about five or six kids.

Bottom line? They LOVED it. They watched a movie from the tent, they ate their dinner in the tent, they slept and fought and giggled and made shadows on the tent walls with a flashlight. Oh, and they forbade me to enter it the entire time they were my guests.

They've gone home to California now. Guess who watched a movie and ate dinner in the tent last night?

© 2011 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie

Feet First

We go together about every two months, on a Sunday morning, my dad and I. An early trip to my nail salon before it opens to the public, when the only traffic moving past us consists of cars headed toward church or diners or doughnuts. My favorite technician, Jenny, drives 45 minutes from her home to greet us at 7:30 a.m. so that my father can have a pedicure without anyone else around.

I can't remember exactly when we started this, but I do recall that the first time I brought my father - some time after my mother died - he was, at 85, still raw from losing her, and not talking much. I noticed that his lower "paws" needed some attention, and asked if he'd like to try a pedicure. He refused, but I kept asking, and then promised total privacy after arranging an early morning visit with Jenny.

From the start, she was in charge - she called him "Daddee" immediately, with the emphasis on the "dee," helped him into a chair, and tended to him as she trimmed nails, put hot towels on his legs, and - this is my favorite part - told him what a great daughter I am. And now my father, who loves routine, breaks my heart (in a good way) every time we have our pedi date. He hurries in, greets Jenny with a huge hello, grabs a magazine and heads to "his" chair... and we sit side by side: daughter and dad, feet immersed, in this unusual place to be connected.

© 2011 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie