Raspberries and Frankenstorm

There were a few raspberries left on the vines outside in the little corner between the kitchen and laundry room windows.  As I was bringing in the plants from the back deck, I realized most of them were dead or dying, which shouldn’t have surprised me because it’s October 28 in New Jersey.  I was bringing them into the garage because “Frankenstorm” is coming.  Every update shows it moving 10-14 mph up the east coast and at this point it’s projected to hit NJ tomorrow night. 

The storm is actually 3 storms:  Hurricane Sandy coming up the coast, a cold front pushing snow and rain from the west, and a blast of cold air from Canada coming down and east.  So, NJ is right in the path of all 3.  To make matters worse, the vast majority of the time there is a low-pressure system over Iceland that tends to draw hurricanes away from the east coast, but as bad luck would have it, this is one of the .2% (point 2 percent!) times that it’s a high pressure system pushing the hurricane towards us.  Not bad enough?  Well, there are still leaves on the trees, so when the snow and rain weigh the branches down, they will pull down the power lines under them. 

I have lived in New Jersey all but the first 2 years of my life, and I’ve never been without power for more than a few hours.  That is, until Hurricane Irene last August when we were out of power for 4+ days.  Some areas had it worse—10-14 days without power.  The only good thing about that was that it wasn’t hot and humid those days so being without air conditioning was bearable, though being without hot water for showers really sucked.

This time, we get cold air too. 

I’m thankful that Rachel decided to stay here rather than going back to the city.  She was stressing over a meeting with an advisor that’s supposed to be on Tuesday, but I tried to help her see that the advisor might not be able to make it into the city either that day.  When they cancelled classes for Monday, I think she started to realize that it could be pretty bad.

Regarding Rachel, I’m not worried about the power being out per se, but more about the potential for rioting and looting that tends to go hand in hand with power outages in the city.  Glad that she’ll be here with us.  I think she’s not too thrilled because I’m getting on her nerves, but frankly, I would get on my nerves if I were her so I’m trying hard not to do the things I do that make us both anxious, like over planning and over anticipating.

So, we’ll have something with fresh raspberries tonight and I’ll keep praying that the hurricane swings out to sea where it will just bother the fish.

But I have a feeling that’s not how this is going to play out.

Stay tuned.