It's been awhile since we've had a hurricane hit Connecticut. When Hurricane Isaias blasted us this week, I immediately thought of this blog and a) how much I miss it and b) how I'm so grateful I have this record of our past life in Mulletville Lite.
Take 2011, when Hurricane Irene hit and we lost power for weeks. We were in the middle of a flea infestation, which halted my vacuuming and laundry-doing efforts. The kids had double ear infections.
But what I didn't write about — as I was deep in the throes of electricity-less misery — was how every morning, our neighbors would walk over so we could cook breakfast on camping equipment in our driveway. We'd walk the neighborhood and survey the lack of progress on downed trees, pour some more whiskey into our coffee, then set up lawn chairs and watch the kids play tag in the yard.
When the work crews closed the main road and diverted traffic through our small neighborhood, we gathered a supply of traffic cones (file this under "things you didn't know your neighbors had in their basement") and turned the street into a one-lane road. Drunk on whiskey, we were giddy at how it slowed people down.
For our quiet little street, that was a lot of excitement. And remember kids, there was no TV or YouTube...
In 2012, Hurricane Sandy knocked out power so the town postponed Halloween a week then we got a nor-easter. The neighborhood folks and I took the kids trick-or-treating, blizzard and all. We changed Junior's knight costume into a downhill skier costume, and I sweat through my winter coat as I carried a rotund 40-pound Everette up and down the streets, knocking on people's doors, asking for candy. People looked at us like, What the hell are you doing here? Halloween is OVER.
They were right.
Now here we are on the other side of the state. Last year, we moved closer to New Haven and gave up our cozy neighborhood setting for a house on a hill that overlooks a neighborhood. When Hurricane Isaias knocked out our power a few days ago, I missed my old neighbors, with all the fervor and want of a lovesick teen staring at a poster of a boy band crush. (My God, do teenagers even still hang posters on their walls? Do they even still have boy bands?)
But my neighbors texted me pictures of sternos. And told me stories of cutting their spouse's hair in nightgowns on the porch, with clippers hooked up to a generator, wearing earmuffs to muffle the sound. And our new neighbors walked our yard with us, ooohing and ahhing over downed trees. They wouldn't drink whiskey at 8am, but we did share bags of ice and extra coolers.
Here's some gratuitous tree carnage:
It's enough to make you forget about COVID-19. Oh right, that.
Here's hoping that if you lost power, you'll get it back today. But more importantly, that if you're aimlessly walking a neighborhood, looking for people to drink whiskey with while you gawk at tree limbs, you'll come find us.
Bonus points if you have a spare road cone and wear it on your head like a party hat.
