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Hi Irene (yawn)

After being whipped into the aforementioned panicky frenzy by the media over Hurricane Irene, on Sunday I was prepared for our street and basement to be flooded, our electricity to go out for a week, our windows to be decimated by wind, and our roof to be cracked open like a walnut by flying debris. I had a lot of nervous energy, with the only outlet being domestic chores: I cleaned the house, did laundry, ran the dishwasher (consuming power greedily, furtively) while Mr. P and Little Boy did manly things like play with trains and construct forts out of music stands and regulation-sized French flags:

Sunday wore on and it became evident that nothing catastrophic was going to happen. We turned on the television to watch the 24-hour storm coverage on the local news. There was a reporter in downtown Boston who was standing in front of a massive 120-year old tree that had been cracked in half by the wind. He gave an earnest 90-second report on the tree, and then turned it back to the studio. I thought, “Oh, poor tree” and then waited to hear about the death and destruction that this very station had promised just two days ago. And then, 10 minutes later, there was an update on the tree. News of the 120 year-old tree’s demise began to appear in the rolling alert at the bottom of the screen. In the next hour, there were 3 more updates on the 120 year-old tree. That reporter was clinging to that tree; he found his Hurricane Irene story, and there was no way he was going to leave in search of something else! Because there were dozens of reporters all over Boston, and there was nothing else!

At 4pm, we had enough of being cooped up inside. There was still some light drizzle and wind, but Little Boy barely noticed it as we headed to the playground — him on his bicycle, us with a basketball. I felt like the most irresponsible parents ever, but soon the playground filled up with other families eager to get outside and not thwarted by a little rain, a little wind, a little falling branches.

We ate dinner at 8pm, toasting the hurricane, laughing about the anti-climatic letdown that we weren’t homeless and/or dead, and coaxing Little Boy to eat yucca root. Just when we were finishing our cheese the lights and music went out. In total silence and darkness, Little Boy began to cry just as Mr. P felt his way to the flashlights. Little Boy had been issued two flashlights earlier in the day: one he had broken (it was an old camping flashlight of mine),and the other he had plumb worn out the batteries, so he was begging for control of a headlamp and our big-ass flashlight. Which he was not getting.

He was not at all happy about lack of lights nor the lack of his customary post-dinner television. “I saw where you were born,” I told him. “There were no lights or television.”

Here he is, wantonly wearing out the batteries with no idea that he’d need them later.

Posted in Existence.

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