Hurricane Ike, Pt. 4

Tuesday

The husband got up and got to the grocery store right when it opened, because he’d been told by a store employee if he got there at 8 am, he could get ice.

Two problems: 1) the store opens at 6 am and 2) the icemaker is broken and only makes one bag of ice every 15 minutes.

He did, however, score a gallon of milk. With no way to store it, we again get the children to drink their fill, then make cocoa with the rest of it to store in hot thermoses for later.

We pick up around the house, just trying to keep the internal chaos at bay. There is chicken breasts marinated in pineapple juice in the freezer that have mostly thawed. I cook them for lunch. They’re delicious.

In the afternoon, a neighbor comes to invite us to a cul de sac barbeque that night. I remember the 3 dozen dark chocolate with salted caramel filling cupcakes in the big freezer and give up my hopes of taking those to the hospital. There’s no way they can make it til Thursday. They’ll be our contribution to the “party.” Besides, it’s time to face the music and open the big freezer.

I’d had hopes that the freezer would still be mostly frozen, as we hadn’t opened it at all, and it had been chock full. Wrong-o. Already, several bags of homemade stock are completely thawed. I remove them, remove the cupcakes, ascertain that some of the other stuff was still frozen, and close the door. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.

Two of our neighbors have pulled their grills out to the curb and are cooking away. Grilled steak, grilled porkchops, ribs … eat your fill. After answering the question, “How did you make cupcakes???”, the cupcakes are enjoyed all around, even by my skinny, perfectly polished neighbor. (Who is also perfectly sweet.)

It is just a little darker than dusk and kids are throwing a football around. No surprise, the football goes afoul and crashes down in my lap, tossing my wine on me. The bugs are biting me through the bug spray, so I scoop up Little Warrior and head in.