Saturday, October 11, 2008

Cinder turns 6!

Today is Cinder's 6th birthday. Of course, to him it's just another day, but to me my best lil' buddy is middle-aged now. Cinder has been with me since near the start of my time here in the Lone Star State. He has had to make a lot of adjustments in his life. He started out as the man of the house and then when the big alpha dog (Robert) moved in, he had to transition from being the man of the house to the dog. Big transition for a dog - still dealing with this today when he acts out and tears up the garbage, or when he runs down the street away from Robert as Robert calls him. Then, he became alpha dog when his sister, Spade, came to live with us. This was probably a ego-boosting move for Cinder b/c he got to be the head of someone again. And now he's middle-aged; he sleeps a lot but still plays rough-and-tough when Spade grabs on to his neck and pulls.

Happy Birthday, Cinder!

(I know, I know, you probably think I'm nuts, but he's like my child!)

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Life after Ike

I intended on posting all about our hurricane experience right after we got power back, but life has been a bit hectic since Ike. After sleeping in the closet as the fury of Ike passed, we emerged to find we were spared any damage. We were without power for 9 days. Thankfully Robert bought a generator, despite me giving him a really hard time about buying one. He takes good care of me, even when I am a pain in the butt. We ran it for a few 3-hour periods through each day. From Saturday until Tuesday, gas was hard to find; most gas stations didn't have power and those that did had really long lines. So, we conserved the generator gas since we didn't know when we would get more. Thankfully a cold front came through the day after the hurricane, so the weather was gorgeous and fans in the windows were sufficient to keep the house cool. By the 8th day without power, it was starting to warm up again, so I was very glad when the power came back on Sunday night, Sept 21st, so we could get a good night sleep in the A/C.

We kinda enjoyed not having power. People in the neighborhood were actually outside hanging with their neighbors. One guy made brownies on the grill to share. We played 42 with our friends in the neighborhood several nights. It was kinda like camping out at home.

Robert's grandparent's place was damaged in the storm, so they have been staying with us since last Wednesday. They had evacuated to OK since Memaw needs electricity to run her oxygen machine. When they returned, they stayed with Robert's dad for a few days and then came to stay with us. Robert, his dad, and some others are at their place now trying to repair it as quickly as possible.

We rescued a little Schnauzer puppy as the last bands of Ike were passing. By that point, we were already at Robert's grandparents trying to figure out what to do about the tree that had fallen on their place and punched through the roof. As Robert and his dad were on the roof with their chainsaws, a little dog came running by and then basically hung by me for the rest of the time we were there. As we were leaving, she put her little paws on the car door like "don't leave me", so we brought her home. After 3 washing and some flea medicine, she was good to go and enjoying playing with Cinder and Spade. After 2 weeks with us and dealing with 4 dogs in our house (Memaw & Punkin's little Poodle is staying here too), I finally created some fliers for Memaw and Punkin to post by their place to see if we could find her owners. Within 3 hours of putting the fliers up, her owner called and she went home the next day. While she was with us, we called her Ikea. I was curious to know what her real name was... turns out it was Fifi.

We were very fortunate to not have any damage to our house. There are several houses in our neighborhood that have tarps on their roofs due to tree damage. In our part of the Houston suburbs, the majority of damage done was due to fallen trees. When we build our new house, I've decided that I don't want any trees close enough to the house to fall on it.

My hope is that is the last hurricane I have to experience for a long, long time!