So, on July 9th I celebrated a half a century of life. I prefer to say it that way rather than use the number 50; just feels more significant when you call it a half a century. For a life marker of such powerful importance, it was a very powerless birthday.
The Sunday night before my birthday on Tuesday, Hurricane Beryl came to Houston. My poor Arya spent the whole time in grandma’s closet, hiding out. My dad and mom and I decided to camp out in the living room. We had been binge watching the series Homeland on Hulu.
An aside — if you haven’t seen this series, get Hulu and watch it. Fantastic acting and great writing. The story just gets better and better which is rare in some series.
Anyway, back to the birthday — so there we were watching and enjoying each other and fretting about the violently swaying trees, when the power went out. We waited for the generator to kick in, but it didn’t. After a very short discussion, we decided to see about it in the morning and we just got books to read.
Monday morning, I went out to see about the generator and got it started manually. Let me tell you, I was petrified the whole time. What if the thing explodes? That thought kept running through my mind, and I did a lot of praying while turning it on. So, then my brother and his wife came over, because they were also out of power.
We discovered, much to our dismay, that while the generator gave us electricity, we did not have cable or internet access. We were completely disconnected from the world. Gone was Hulu. Gone was Homeland. We dug up our DVD collection — you remember back when you owned movies and that meant you had a physical copy of them. We even found some VHS tapes and we still have a video player so… we went old school.
Tuesday arrived in this unplugged manner. Roads were not safe as huge swaths of Houston were dark. My favorite eateries were closed. Friends were busy recovering from the aftermath of Beryl. My sister-in-law was cool and went to Whole Foods and got us a cake — from the Fourth of July ones they had.
It was a very patriotic celebration for my half century marker. I don’t know what the beginning of the next half of my life means, but it sure started with high drama and old school entertainment.
I am about to say something I have never said before. It’s really not like me, here goes: I miss June! I typically spend every summer just waiting and waiting for the fall season to return. I like fall. That time of year is nice. It means that eventually cooler weather will return. Lots of stores sell Halloween decorations (Oh, by the way there is a rumor on Facebook that Joann’s has started putting out some already! )
As soon as the calendar flips to July, there is another “friend” to worry about. Hurricane Beryl. This is a big storm that does not appear to play well with others. He also does not stick with his own rules. He all but promised that he would not enter Texas. Now, hurricane warnings are popping up all along the Gulf Coast. I suppose Beryl is proud of himself, because he is breaking all kinds of records like earliest major storm in the Gulf, the biggest storm ever (or so it seems, Category 5 is big). This morning I learned that it is now headed for South Texas and Houston is included in the cone of uncertainty. Egad!
