An Advent Journey

We're waiting here at Casa de Cub.   Waiting for Christmas.  We've also been waiting for Camera Guy to finish working and have 2 weeks off so we can get a Christmas tree, start decorating the house, finish Christmas shopping (or in his case, start) and finalize plans for Christmas Day.  We aren't waiting for that anymore.  He finished working 2 nights ago!  We went to 2 parties last night!  We decorated the tree tonight!  Let the celebrating begin!

Advent really is *my* season.  The color the church uses to signify Advent is purple.  Purple is my favorite color.  I wear it all year long, but I really love wearing it during Advent.  I feel like I really fit in during Advent, fashion-wise.

We're waiting for the Christ child.  I'm trying very hard to instill in Cub the notion that Christmas isn't all about Santa and getting presents.  He's pretty good about saying back to me that it's Jesus' birthday when I ask him what Christmas is.  But, he's almost 4 years old.  He's also quite enamored with TV commercials filled with toy ads and frequently tells me of something new he saw that he wants.  It's been a journey for me to explain (over and over again) that we can't afford to buy him everything he wants, that he's already a very lucky boy to have the toys he has and that some toys will have to wait until he's older before he can have them.  


However, one toy eludes me that he wants.  He says it’s a jumping robot.  I have NO idea what that is.  He says he saw a commercial for it.  Yet, with all the time I’ve watched with him, I have yet to see it.  I don’t know what it is and perhaps it will be a journey of learning for him that we don’t always get everything we want.

We're waiting for the city to clear the debris from our street from the wind storm we had 2.5 weeks ago.  Don't get me wrong, our street is very passable, but there are a couple of large debris piles and tree limbs blocking portions of our street that I'd like to see removed before New Year's Day.  While it might serve as a nice deterrent for unwanted people to park some vehicles on our street for the parade, the better choice is too have it removed.  I called to remind the Public Works Dept. that there will be several thousand people passing through our area on January 2 and that the children may want to play on the downed tree limbs and may potentially get hurt, opening the city to a lawsuit.  They took down my street name.  That was last Tuesday.  This is Sunday and the debris is all still there.  I plan to go and haul some of the wood away tomorrow to keep for firewood for us.  Camera Guy hasn't let me have a fire in the fireplace since Cub was born for safety's sake.  He says I get to have one this year!

We're waiting.  Anticipating.  Eagerly looking forward to and hopefully wishing for our individual heart's desires.  waiting is so very hard when you're not yet 4 years old.  Heck, it's hard when yo're my age, too.  :)  My heart's desire?  To watch Cub experience and enjoy the thrills of Christmas Day and spending time with my family.  With a warm fire in the fireplace.

A Windy Journey

For the amount and force of wind that went through my city the other night, we were very fortunate with the outcome at Casa de Cub.

I had not been aware of how hard the winds we were expected to have would blow.  I was pleasantly ignorant.  I took few precautions.  I laid our patio chairs and a ladder on their side.  I put our hose on top of Cub's outdoor toys inside his plastic pool. But that was about it.

As I prepared for sleep, I put in my earplugs per usual (Camera Guy snores, don'tcha know) and heard the wind a few times throughout the night.  Thankfully Cub slept through it all.

I awoke to find a large piece of tree branch blocking half of our street and twigs and leaves in our yard.  A neighbor had a relatively small-sized tree crack and fall over.  Our next door neighbor had a tree crack and fall into our yard.  She also lost most of the shingles on the front of her house.  I saw several branches in the street farther down aways.  Not anything catastrophic, just inconvenient and unfortunate.

Our mayor asked us to stay inside and not venture out if it wasn't necessary, leaving the roads to the emergency vehicles and Water & Power crews.  I did just that.  However, I did walk around the corner to a local church to see what I had heard was a very large tree that had fallen.  Very large was an understatement.  It was then that I started to get a sense of the magnitude of this wind event.

After deciding to clean up our front yard and salvage what I could of the twigs for free kindling, Cub and I retired to the house for the remainder of the evening.  We were supposed to have another windy night so I got out the flashlights and candles, just in case we lost power, which hadn't happened the previous night. But, again, fortunately, we didn't.

Today was my first time venturing outside of my little pocket, my protected bubble.  When I recalled someone on the internet having referred to the destruction they saw in my city as a war zone, I decided to modify that (after all, a war zone surely is horrific) to say this looked like all the trees, and I mean ALL the trees in the city got into a war with one another.  Hardly a tree is unaffected.  And this is a city that loves it's trees.  As are our neighboring cities, which also sustained a fair amount of damage and loss.  Driving takes more concentration than usual as large amounts of tree branches and trees are blocking entire lanes of some streets and parts of lanes on others.  Not one street has full use of their driving surface.  You cannot imagine what it looks like by seeing a news report on TV or pictures on the internet. It's almost beyond comperhension.

I mean, how hard must it have been blowing to break a cement light pole in half?  I saw a half dozen in that condition in the 2 mile drive between my and my mother's house.  How many more are there like that?  Several friends are still without power and one friend in a neighboring city had her apartment red tagged after a power pole AND a tree went through the wall of her kitchen.  I am thankful it wasn't her bedroom.  She is not allowed to live there until the pole and tree are removed, and presumably until the wall is repaired.  How long might THAT all take?

It's truly devastating and disheartening to see the destruction that has occurred.  It makes me sad knowing that some folks aren't going to be able to afford to pay to have their trees cut down and removed and the city will only take care of those trees in the front parking strip or if they are blocking a road.  And if it's not a main artery, they may not get to it for awhile.

My journey today is one of pain.  I am hurting for the loss our city has suffered and the amount of clean up we as a whole are facing.  And yet, I am even more thankful and grateful knowing how truly fortunate we were at Casa de Cub after experiencing a small portion of what other folks are facing.  A few roof shingles is nothing in comparison.