I think we need a WEATHER thread

My parents and brother live in Manchester (and one of my sisters lives in Jackson, LAND OF GREAT ADVENTURE), and they feel pretty similarly to you. They were inconvenienced and nothing more, the last one of my family to get power back was my sister yesterday. But not-too-far-away, everything is in ruins. Seeing the pictures has me pretty depressed, a large portion of my childhood got washed away and it's strange and eerie and I hate being so far away from it, fucked up as that sounds.

My parents got power back and went home yesterday. Today my sister got power back and she and her daughter went home from my parents' house.

So, mostly back to normal.

There is definitely something weird about it, and it's weird on a fundamental level. Like I've got basically this comfortable upper middle class lifestyle (yeah I'm living with my parents but work with me here OK). I eat well, I live comfortably, I have decent clothes and food and whatnot. And other than a few days of blackout, that's pretty much intact. Last night I was over at my brother's condo in Tinton Falls, and I was joking with him when his power came back on. I said something like: "You know, the lack of power has made me really start to think about how I approach my life. I waste so much time on the internet, with video games, with TV... I think maybe I should try and use this experience to disconnect, do more writing, more reading, more studying. But fuckit, let's play some Xbox." It was typical ironic bullshit.

The thing is, there's this weird knowing that's always in the back of my head now. It's like a buzzing sound that's just barely there if you listen for it, but otherwise you really only notice it occasionally. And every time I listen for it, I'm reminded that just a few miles away from me, people are suffering. Not the kind of suffering I'm used to: not I've-gone-four-days-without-electricty suffering, not my-girlfriend-just-dumped-me suffering, not I-just-lost-my-job suffering, but rather Real Suffering. Capital letters intentional. Pain and anguish and fear and uncertainty the likes of which I - from my comfortable upper-middle class perch - find impossible to comprehend. Up and down the coast around me it's a genuine disaster, and here I am sitting in my warm bedroom on my nice bed typing away on my Macbook Pro and ugh it just feels so fucking strange.

Nice post, Jeff. I'm having a hard time getting my mind around it. Monday I was huddled in my home while the storm aimed right at me, convinced my home and everything in it was going to end up underneath a forest, and, frankly, it turned out to be a dud here. Wasn't even that much rain. And I know plenty of people who suffered damage to their Shore homes, but they are all second, vacation homes, so my sympathy for them has its limits. My wife's office still has no power but she can work from home. I'm told my state is a disaster area but I don't see it and I don't feel it. Intellectually, I know that most of the affected people are not one-percenters bemoaning their dampened carpets, but it all seems as distant as an Ecuadorean earthquake. I wonder how I got to be so lucky and others . . .didn't.

Is your Mom's head OK?

Apparently so. The only outward sign that she fell is a bruise on her leg. Getting rid of the stress of no power should help a lot. For months now she's had good days and bad days.

A typical phone call, with Mom and Dad on two extensions in the house.

Mom: Does your dog sleep a lot? Our dog sleeps an awful lot.

Me: Yeah, Ma. My dog snoozes most of the day. She goes out for walks with me, and plays with us at night, but most days she snoozes on the couch.

Dad and I continue talking about other stuff. What the nieces are doing, what he needs to do in the yard still. About 15 minutes later.

Mom: Does your dog sleep a lot? My dog is asleep in my lap all the time. He must sleep 18 hours a day.

Me: Yeah, Ma. My dog sleeps a lot.

Mom: I guess that's normal then.

Repeat about five more times in an hour long phone call. The dog sleeping chorus has been going on for about a year now, and it pretty much means all is right in the world. Dad bought three pounds of coffee a couple of months back because it was on sale, and when she's agitated she gets on about Dad filling up the house with coffee, and that they don't have enough room to store all the coffee he's buying. The three pounds have now been used and he's bought more, but she's still on about how much coffee he's stockpiling.

so an NYC friend of mine (from junior high! isn't Facebook amazing?) was stuck with his date when Sandy hit. Five days later they finally left the apartment and next thing you know, he's updating his status from "single" to "in a relationship." He's meeting the family next week. Sandy love!

That's kind of sweet.

When I first read this I read "date" as "dad", needless to say the relationship status update was a little confusing.

Weather Underground is predicting a nor'easter forming Wednesday night around 7PM.

Guh, oh man, can't they get a break back east?

Dislike :(

Damn it, and I don't get my snow tires until Saturday!

Listen, earth. I know I am sexy. But I can't take all this love. The mind is willing, but the flesh is soft and spongy.

earth pls. stahp.

Hey Aeon, can you move to Arizona?

Preferably before Wednesday night.

That Nor'Easter is why I'm going hiking tomorrow instead of my usual Thursday. Sandy wrecked my plans last week, and I gotta get my hikes in while I still can.

Good news about the noreaster - once you've lost power, its not like you can lose it more*

*unless a tree falls onto the car supplying power to my house. Please don't do that nice, remaining tree.

Jeez, what did New Jersey do wrong? It appears to be working out some serious bad karma.

Here on the 46th floor (Philly), it looks and sounds like a freaking blizzard.

We haven't gotten any rain or snow yet, but the wind is crazy!

It's chilly and cold out, but no rain, a little windy here. I wonder if this thing is just going to pass me by?

Promptly passed out for three hours this afternoon after getting back from a morning run. (10 miles, by way of explanation for why I was exhausted.) When I woke up at 3 pm it was winter outside. Not snowing too hard as of yet, but it's accumulating.

The fact that there are still a lot of leaves on the trees makes me worried about a repeat of what happened last year on Halloween.

That's a movie script in the making right there.

Colorado low is making its way up into Manitoba tonight and we are expecting upwards of 30 centimeters or more of snow overnight. Wheee!

I am disappointed.

WHERE ARE MY 30 CM SKY!

Hurricane Sandy has officially ended for me - 12 days later my power is restored.

Holy crap. I don't know how you made it that long. 5 days for me and I would've been gnawing off my own limbs.

Goodness, I thought a week without gas after the Northridge earthquake was bad. That was noting compared to what you've gone through.

The record temperature for Burlington for this day was 66 degrees Fahrenheit, set back in 1982.

It is presently 70 degrees Fahrenheit here.

64 down here in New York. And I just unpacked all my sweaters!

67 and rising in Cali. I still need to unpack my winter clothes in storage, apparently it's snowing in the place I'm going on Thursday.

You're doing better than me, Alligator. I have no idea where my sweatshirts and sweaters have gone.

It's currently 6, and raining. So pretty much a normal November for Vancouver.

55 here in Mountain View. My cats are acting like we're stuck in the frozen tundra.

One of my cats has already experienced snow. They seem to be bothered by excess heat more than the cold.

Hmm. My cat seems to like it cold, too. Probably because I like it cold.

When it hits the 50s and below my cats are get very crabby about going out, especially the female. She sticks her nose out, draws her whole body back in revulsion, puts a tentative paw out, shakes it like the nasty cold is stuck on it, goes out and shakes all 4 paws on her first complete pace, and then stalks off looking extremely annoyed. She makes her minimum rounds and comes back in to sleep all day.

The male does the paw-shake but then heads out to do his normal, more extensive rounds. He would rather be outside in the cold and wet than inside most of the time, so off he goes. But it doesn't mean he has to look happy about it.

We're finally getting some rain and wind. Five or six days in a row. Naturally this is prompting storm warnings and runs on sandbags and batteries. Ah, California.

(To be fair, Sacramento does tend to flood. But still.)

Time for people to suddenly forget how to drive because water is falling from the sky.

Last picture in centimetres, obviously.