How to Weather the Storm

Sigh. It has been a long week and a half for all Houstonians and others who suffered the wrath of Hurricane Ike. Really, really long...

It started for us with an evacuation to my parents house an hour north of the city. We packed for a few days, thinking we'd be home soon. Four of our friends came and we had a "hurricane party" that began with a movie marathon until we lost power, and then lots of board games and long walks.

By Sunday we realized it was going to be a while. My parents were fortunate to have their power restored, and most of their water, that afternoon. But we couldn't go back to our house, so we stayed put.

Tuesday we went back to our house and felt very emotional about it all. Some of our favorite places were severely damaged. The early curfew that took everyone off the streets at 6 pm made everything a little eerie. The long gas lines and grocery stores run off generators made for a lot of stress. So many trees were uprooted.

And of course there are so many good people, handing out water and ice and MREs and helping rebuild. I've never seen so many people at one time working in their yards.

Our house sustained minimal damage... Three outer windows were lifted off by the winds and shattered to the ground (thank God for double-paned windows), a leak in our kitchen ceiling, and some tree damage. Our back yard looks like a jungle now.

I headed to Ohio for a history conference on Wednesday and my husband went to his parents (where they had power). Ohio also suffered a lot of damage as a result of Ike. It's like it wouldn't end. Of course every time someone learned I was from Houston, they inquired about the state of things. I talked about Ike as much as I talked about my dissertation. I went to Ohio hoping when I returned Sunday things would be back to normal. But as the days wore on, I realized things would not be back to normal for a very, very long time. I got more and more emotional about it.

So now I'm home, sitting in my house which now has all the modern conveniences again, and things are far from normal. My husband is back at school but feeling disoriented, and I'm trying to work on my dissertation but distracted by the damage and trying to catch up on all the things we couldn't do the last 10 days. There is, in the city, a collective sense of struggle. We're all trying to be normal but literally taking it one day at a time. People who have nothing have even less now.

And now it's time to rebuild. Oh for the strength to help...

How to Change Your Name

We had a monumentally terrible experience at the DMV trying to change our driver's license, but my husband wants to rant about that. So here is a phone conversation I had today with a representative at Green Mountain Energy (an otherwise fabulous company that provides our pollution-free home energy):

ME: Hi, I'd like to change the last name on our account to our new married name.

GM: You want to change your last name?

ME: Yes, and my husband's.

GM: I can change your name.

ME: OK, but we need to change his name too.

GM: Um, let me put you on hold.

pause

GM: Let me ask you a question. Why would we change his name? You didn't take his last name when you got married?

ME: No (trying to stay calm), we both changed our names, so his name is different. He changed his name too.

GM: To what?

ME: (sigh) We both hyphenated.

GM: Oh. Well I don't think we can change his name. We can change your name. We can only change the names to a legally married name.

ME: Right. That's his legally married name.

GM: Maybe if you faxed your marriage license? I can't just add a name to his name.

ME: But it's his name...

GM: Maybe I can talk to my supervisor, do you want to hold?


Argggh. It's just a hyphen, people. Chill!