Odd maladies

Besides all my traveling and blogging summer, this fall I tried to add fall election campaigns, the presbytery racial-ethnic task force, and the Brown School Parent-Teacher-Student-Association to my already full schedule. Vincent going AWOL was both a cause and effect of that - and something else that has been time-consuming and stressful. Not getting enough sleep and all of this stress and activity can cause health problems. Earlier this fall I suffered a relapse of athlete's foot (see "Chronic malady"). In the wake of Ike and AWOL Vincent, three other unusual health problems appeared. During the Ike aftermath/Vincent AWOL week, I reached down to kiss Stephanie who was lying in bed when Frisco - who had laid down next to her - both jealous and fearful I was going to squash him - scratched and bit me harder than usual. Of everyone in the family, Frisco only bites me (ostensibly because - unlike the other two - I let him decide which walking circuit we'll go on - and the like - Stephanie is the alpha dog - Vincent and Frisco are equals - and I am the low person on the totem pole). You can see the result, this time, above and below.

As you might imagine, this took a while to heal. I believe it was one evening a week or two later when I was doing something I ought to do more - floss my teeth - when I knocked off center one of my two molar crowns. A couple of years ago - after going for two years without going to the dentist - I had to get two root canals and get those teeth crowned. Our dentist seems quite good, but - less than two years ago - one of the crowns was loose. I've been flossing less and less -but somehow I lost my mind the next morning and - as you used to do more soon after the root canals - I started flossing in the car. In this case, my crown came off altogether and went flying through the car. Luckily, I was able to find it on the car floor and I finally put it in the box below (I'll write about its contents later). My dentist took me that morning and she glued and notched the crown back in. She said I was lucky I didn't do what some other people do: swallow it or lose it altogether. Since the crowns cost several hundred dollars, you don't want to lose them outright.

Two years ago after a particularly tough early spring, I went to an allergist - after not having been to one for nearly 30 years (last in Tallahassee and Gainesville when I was a kid). We adopted a three-prong strategy: environmental changes, oral medication, and old-fashioned allergy shots. I don't always make it in there every week. But late in September I got in there on Saturday morning and got a shot that turned out to be 10 or 100 times more potent than the ones I'd been getting. Allergy shots are essentially like immunizations - they expose you to a small concentration of what your body is allergic to - in my case, grasses, trees, dust, ragweed, cats, dogs, horses, and feathers - and build up your body's resistance. Over time they increase the strength of the shots. In my case, however, we may (with increasing the strength) have to go more slowly or stop sooner, because I may be so allergic that I can't take the shots in the concentrations that some other people can. My arm swelled and got very itchy. I didn't go back for a couple of weeks. By that time, me having called them, they prmised to go back to the old concentration/strength.

In the mean time, I put cream (below) on the arm where I got the shot (above), but I don't think this really helped much.

We'll see what additional odd maladies can beset me this fall.

-- Perry

Strange exchange

One night Vincent actually stayed home with us in part because he'd reached his father. We got desperate enough while Vincent was gone that we actually called his father - we also figured he might have called his father, possibly about going up there. Historically, either of us would have hid something going wrong from each other, but we went ahead and called. After Vincent's father did a big speech in August urging Vincent to keep his eye on the ball, he apparently was consistent and urged Vincent to go back home. We felt a little bad we hadn't called him back to let him know that Vincent had indeed come back. But in the middle of the week Vincent and he were in contact because he was helping move someone to Louisville (once before with and once before without Vincent, he'd been in town). We got Vincent a camera before he went to Denmark and amazingly he brought it back (full of pictures). He'd taken it when he went to Ohio for a week or so in late July/early August and had left it at his aunt's house (in the house in which he was conceived, across the street from Stephanie's grandparents' house, where she lived). We hadn't had a chance to get it back and although Vincent had asked his father to mail it to him it had not arrived. Vincent wanted a camera for while the Danes were here, and so he persuaded his father to bring it on this moving run. Vincent's father's moving colleagues were eager to get back to Columbus (it was already about 1o p.m.) and they didn't know Louisville (and in fact Vincent's father had gotten lost the last time he was in Louisville). And so we arranged to meet them at a rest area going out of town (rest area across the highway from the one at which I learned of my Grandma's death). Unfortunately, it turns out the rest area was closed so we had to meet Vincent's father for 4-5 minutes along the busy, dark Interstate 71. Above is either their truck pulling up or an earlier decoy. Vincent's father jumped out of the truck, gave Vincent the camera, talked with him and us for about three minutes, and then rushed back to the truck, for a long drive home. Nothing was said about Vincent's flight, although it should have been clear he was back with us. We actually drove a fair ways - and concocted this meeting plan (imperfect as it was - since the rest area was closed) - to meet up with him, and so Vincent should have been happy. It would take much longer, of course, for things to settle down the normal, if they ever would. Still, an odd encounter - though we were glad for Vincent to get the camera back - following up an on odd set of phone conversations with Vincent's father.

-- Perry

Re-integration

When Vincent used to go over to his father's for the weekend or for part of a vacation, we'd sometimes plan "re-integration" activities - fun activities that were supposed to get us used to being together again, get Vincent used to our expectations again, and do something fun. Vincent came home around 7:30 p.m. (8-9 hours after the family meeting with Aaron and Ian), we called the police (as we were supposed to) and an officer came out (an officer whom Vincent didn't impress that much), and then Vincent went to bed. Vincent had gone off the next day to hang out with his friend/prom date, Jessi, who lost electricity for only 6 hours during the whole escapade. Lewis, her father, and Jessi had periodically kept us informed on Vincent's activities, even though they didn't have his where abouts (Vincent saying they would tell on him). One generally fun aspect of Ike aftermath, you'll recall, was we basically HAD to eat out - we couldn't cook on our electric stoves (and a lot of groceries - though we hadn't really checked much yet by Tuesday) - had gone bad. Vincent wanted to go out to eat with Jessi, her family, and a friend, who he had spent the day with. We were still and are still pushing him to follow through with his agreement to "check in with us' about going somewhere different. He "informed" us by phone that he was going out to eat with Jessi and her family, and we ended up joining them - at BBC (Bluegrass Brewing Company...not the Bradfordville Blues Club we used to go to in Tallahassee)- a restaurant nearby that Stephanie and I had visited for the pub crawl and where we had gone out to eat for one relatively unhappy Kentucky Derby. It was a fun scene there - it was packed on a Tuesday night because lots of folks in St. Matthews had no electric power. One thing that happened - besides the happy festive atmosphere (partly because some folks were also out of work this week - the bank account wasn't so thrilled about eating out a lot) - was we ran into other people we know - In fact, when we got there, we settled into a table with Debbie, our church music director and mother of Jessi, while Vincent sat at a nearby table with Jessi and a friend of hers. Lewis, Jessi's father, was off in the courtyard outside having a cigar with our pastor's husband (!?). Lewis re-joined us eventually. In the picture above, Stephanie had joined Vincent, Jessi, and her friend in a happy scene that made it seem like all was forgiven. Below - Stephanie has re-joined Debbie and me. We also ran into another youth group family, Maria, Peter, and sons, Luis, and Daniel. We used to often give rides to Luis and Daniel to youth group before Vincent's rebellion.

Below, Lewis has re-joined us.

We like this family from church and are glad Jessi and Vincent are friends, and they helped serve as a glue/buffer for us on that first full day back home for Vincent. At one point we thought Lewis would be a good mediator since Vincent actually listens to Lewis, but Ian is someone that Vincent can relate to given some of their similarities. (It turns out they and their daughter have faced some struggles in the past year plus, and Stephanie listened eagerly about that (and good news about how that's been going recently.)

-- Perry

More Ike pictures

During Ike when we weren't trying to find a restaurant that had electricity we had several candlelight meals. Usually these meals were fruit and sandwiches (using up the last of the bread before it went bad). I badly missed my morning coffee until Heine Brothers got their electric restored.

The candle holder we used the most was one that my step-brother, Bobby, had made for me. It has a place for nine different tea light candles. This put out quite a bit of light, especially paired with a few more candles and placed in front of our mirror on our mantle. Perry tried to capture some of the light, with some weird results.

I ended up using up most of my tea lights. I'll need to replenish my supply before the next hurricane hits Louisville.

Keep Bobby in your thoughts and prayers as he continues to under go treatment, both radiation and chemotherapy, for his in-operable brain cancer.

--- Stephanie

Family meeting plus

Once or twice since Vincent had come back from Denmark, the three of us had a "family meeting," almost like group/family therapy we'd done in Tallahassee with Grandma Martha plus counselors (before they fired us) (minus the counselors). Vincent had come back from Denmark high partly on the lack of parental supervision, permissive culture, and lack of school/lack of homework. He tried to extend this into the school year, which meant he butted heads with me. In the past two years we had hosted Danish exchange students - a somewhat trying experience at least for Stephanie and me - but we contemplated doing it again - with the kid whose families had hosted Vincent in Denmark. But when as we found out Vincent was failing (eventually - it turned out - 4 of 7 1/2 classes already) - we explained we wouldn't do it again. Vincent was in denial until a weekend in which I realized there was no way Vincent was going to raise his grade in time in all of the classes he was failing by the end of the six-week grading period, and I spelled it out more emphatically: no Danish exchange student. I suspected that - if we allowed it - that Vincent's teacher Carrie would still allow Vincent to some of the events/hanging out with the Danes. But Vincent didn't necessarily anticipate this and he got mad and I actually egged him on a little and he took a backpack with a few shorts and his bank card and left at 1 p.m. Saturday.

He left with his cell phone and we called him periodically - even in that terrible wind storm - usually eventually hearing some bad language. In this exchange and others recently, Vincent had said some terrible things about leaving after he turns 18 or graduates and never talking with us again, not liking us, blah blah blah. Sunday I uncovered lost contact information for Vincent's classmates and we started calling his friends and their families. Jon, our exchange student from last year, had also started out with what became my cell phone, and so we had a few more numbers off of that. Eventually, we began to get closer to finding him. After the storm, you'll recall, we had also called and reported Vincent missing to the St. Matthews police. In the early aftermath of the storm - when they had no power either - an officer came out to take the report. Late Sunday a friend of Vincent called, asked to speak with Stephanie, and arranged for us to meet (family meeting) with Vincent - and a mutually agreed upon mediator (?!) - at Heine Brothers in the Highlands. We called Ian, one of the church youth ministry coordinators, and asked him to join us. Unbeknownst to us, Vincent asked his friend Aaron (who turned out to be the real mediator) to join us too.

The next morning Ian, Stephanie, and I were there as planned at 10:30 a.m. That's when Stephanie took pictures of that butterfly. Stephanie has explained - in "Mediating Mariposa" - that Heine Brothers was packed - in fact, a bunch of Vincent's friends swung by at some time or another. Aaron and Vincent - perhaps to make a point - showed up about 70 minutes late. Vincent had a statement which he read, in which he explained that he was sad, and didn't want to be, and outlined essentially a serious of demands. Several that have stuck is that we wouldn't require him to keep going to church and youth group and Children's Fellowship activities and martial arts classes (ironic and a little sad since there was "our" mediator, the youth group co-coordinator). Some seven weeks later, Vincent has since never set foot at church or at the martial arts school - which has disappointed me because Vincent was really friendly with some of the adults and kids at both places and was occasionally helpful at Children's Fellowship (where his spring prom date also helps out). Vincent's KY Governor's Scholars application had talked about his participation in all of these. Now, it is true that Vincent is very busy with school work this semester - but this didn't and hasn't stopped him from doing lots of other socializing.

Some of Vincent's other demands were preposterous - or struck me as so then. We had traditionally asked Vincent to come home right after school to do homework and rescue the dog from the crate in the basement. We had Vincent on the electronics holiday - which meant among other things he wasn't supposed to play video games or watch TV - because of behavior and grades. I also asked Vincent not to ride in cars that his classmates driving because that tended to get him home late. Vincent also had a 9 p.m. bedtime (which goes back to Grandma Martha). (After a previous family meeting, we had experimented with later bed times, but Vincent soon got sick and didn't quit saying he was "tired' all the time.) Vincent still felt - as after Denmark - that he should be able to wonder the town at will every day - school night or not - and even spend the night at people's houses. This is essentially what he did for most of the next week - when he did almost no school work even though he was behind and failing four classes - at least as long as the power was out. We set up an elaborate arrangement in which Vincent was supposed to be able to go out late a couple of weeknight evening a month- but Vincent quickly failed to follow up on many of his corresponding responsibilities. An underlying issue is that Vincent didn't think we should be able to ask him to do things - "I take orders from no one" was his declaration in a later argument. Stephanie wanted Vincent home - even more than I did - and she was willing to compromise a fair amount to get him back.

Amazingly, Vincent's 17-year-old friend Aaron did mediate - and essentially arbitrate. I clashed with him initially - partly irritated that this teenager was making final decisions. Aaron dismissed some of Vincent's positions as preposterous - for example, that he should be able to swear and use bad language at home at any time - he's still gotten away with lots of that - ADD-tending Vincent also got bored at the end and he and ADD-tending Ian went off and chatted until Aaron and we hammered out the final details. Later Vincent complained that Aaron had been too "soft" and that he had never really agreed to much of the stuff.

One exchange opened the door to greater intervention on my part in Vincent's schooling. Aaron agreed that Vincent could not maintain these wandering around privileges. But we didn't want to wait until the end of grading periods for report cards we rarely receive anyway. We also insisted that we didn't trust whatever Vincent had written as school work to do in his planners - which he's rarely used anyway this school year. So Vincent was supposed to get back to something he did in elementary school where we were supposed to hear from each of his teachers each week to see how he was doing. We've never quite managed that - but we did carry out some rather extraordinary interventions which I'll blog about later. I am continuing to go through Vincent's school bags each day and visit the school regularly and e-mail back and forth some with Vincent's school teachers to keep an eye on his school work and push him to do it. I have also prioritized some skills and some classes in my mind - for example, Vincent's senior project partly for AP senior English, which Vincent must pass some version of to pass English, and math review for the ACT, which Vincent takes - probably for the last time - Saturday morning. I have helped Vincent find scholarly books and articles on teens reading and writing and pushed him to read and take notes on some of these (some books he's claimed to have read in 20 minutes, and so this is a constant struggle). I have also tried to push more on major projects in other classes. If anything, I am involved as I've ever been on this - which Vincent doesn't like - but I doubt he'd have the 10 pages of notes he's got to give his English teacher tomorrow if not for that prodding/help.

Even with the spelled-out agreement, much was ambiguous. As annoying as it was at times - and Vincent has periodically subsequently threatened to run away again - as well as cart out an argument he hasn't made explicit much in the past to me - You're not my real parent. - this family meeting - with the two mediators - was still pretty incredible. In the picture below, there is long, wavy-haired Aaron - at the table outside of Heine Brothers with the somewhat cloudy September sky, a day after Ike - in the middle between Stephanie and Vincent.

There (below) is Aaron making a point, while Vincent (who was initially - like me - was quite pent up).

Here (below) is another dark picture with the three of them (no Ian yet).

And again:

Before all leaving, we agreed that any of us could call a follow-up meeting, perhaps with Aaron (and Ian?) again. In practice, many provisions of the agreement lacked enforcement mechanisms - and Vincent quickly failed to honor some of his responsibilities - while denying - when it suited him - that he had agreed to many of the things. Later that day, however, Aaron e-mailed me what he had typed up - partly from my notes:

Daily Obligations:
-obligations that that must be completed each day before utilizing privileges.
If undone, Vincent may not utilize ay privileges the next day.
-Must walk dog 1 mile, and have started by 4 PM
-Homework must be completed before 7:30 PM
-Must be at home at 7:30PM, unless organized with parents earlier
-Must be able to answer phone from parents
-Complete morning chores before 7:00 AM, before coming downstairs
-NO CURSING
-Must contact at least one parent at each change of location

Weekly Obligations
-Must be completed by 7:30 PM Friday
-Must be able to get verification of all scholastic work each week
-Must have gone to gym twice a week, cannot go twice on Friday, or any other day.
-If uncompleted, Vincent may not utilize privileges the next week

Other Obligations That Are Not Necessarily Recurring
-Family may call meeting, with mutually acceptable moderator to review decisions
-Must participate in family events
-Must take and pass Geometry final by end of September
-Must take late October ACT
-Must respect each other all the time

Vincent and Aaron left - and Vincent appeared several minutes after he had promised - after 7 p.m. Monday- about 51 hours after he had left initially. He said little to us and slept up in his room that night. But the rest of the Ike aftermath week he usually stayed over at friends - which we wouldn't normally had let him do ad nauseam - sometimes when we didn't necesssarily know where he was. We've gradually reined him back in - including with some threats to call the police again when he hasn't been home. The return of the Danes - and Vincent' s friendship with Tim and infatuation with Christina - coupled with his love for being out and about now - have encouraged some backsliding - even while I've worked on getting him to finish his core senior projects tasks, prepare for the math section of the ACT, and - in general - try to get him to do what we ask and pass one or two of these four classes he's been failing - by semester's end.

-- Perry

Stranded Ike pictures

Above and below are two Ike aftermath pictures that got eaten on the way to constructing the Ike aftermath blog entry. Our first Sunday disaster tourism walk - after passign the clock and on the way to Chenoweth Square - included walking past the railroad crossing - with the gate stuck in downed power lines. Even after this part of St. Matthews had regained power a day or two later, the gate was still stuck, and I called the city - worried that eventually the gate was going to break. Below is a picture of St. Matthews Avenue, with all of the trees and downed power lines that we thought for many days were depriving our block of power (turned out to be just a couple houses down with the power lines - still hanging there today - near the black sports car, you'll recall). The city wouldn't remove the trees on St. Matthews Avenue for several days because they were worried the power lines might electrocute their workers, and the utility company wouldn't remove the power lines until the trees were cleared. This street stayed blocked off for almost a week. Eventually, Frisco and i figured a way around this, even in the morning in the dark.

-- Perry

Mediating Mariposa

After Ike and no electricity the city of Louisville seemed to be out in force, almost like Mardi Gras, in the neighborhoods that did have electricity. With the whole Vincent fiasco, lack of electricity, and the need to eat we often made it to a local coffee chain, Heine Brothers (they also let you plug in your lap tops, cell phones, and other electrical devices).

During one such outing, Perry will write about it later, we saw flitting around the passion flower plants a beautiful butterfly. I was able to get these shots off before he fluttered away to a less crowded garden (probably one at a house with no electricity and therefore fewer people).

---Stephanie

Ike aftermath

Twenty-four hours after- almost to the minute - Vincent ran away - back in early September - Hurricane Ike with hurricane-force wind but not a speck of rain - struck Louisville and our Crescent Hill/St. Matthews area. As I left our church sanctuary after worship the sky darkened a bit (Stephanie having left earlier to see if Vincent had returned in our absence), and then I noticed a tree already down and blocking Crescent Avenue. We had followed via CNN and the Weather Channel - prior to Vincent's departure - Ike's devastation in Cuba and Texas. But we took our eyes off this ball after Vincent left, and we had no idea about this part we were in for. Stephanie, Frisco, and I stayed in after I returned, and the wind blew, trees shook, and leaves fell (in a way - not totally different from when I was visiting them five years earlier in Bradenton for Frances) - but without the rain it was hard to know how devastating what was going on was or would become.

A clue came at about 2 p.m. when the lights first flickered and eventually went out - almost all over town, it turns out - except in places like my downtown office building (and probably Vincent's school) where the power lines are underground. (Because we have a natural gas heat water heater, we did not lose our hot water.) (Incidentally, it never did rain for weeks and weeks, as the soft drought continued.) After another hour - still wondering about Vincent (we called him at some point and had a brief conversation and reported him missing to the St. Mathews police...they also called him and talked to him via cell phone) - we ventured out to do a little disaster tourism (probably earlier than we should have). Immediately, a characteristic of the whole week appeared - we talked more with our neighbors - many of whom would hang out to survey the damage, clean up, and - with no electricity inside - just to commiserate. Pictured above is our neighbor Diane, with whom we share a driveway, who was friends with the woman who owned our house for 50 years and died in the dining room four years ago next month - with whom we do talk pretty regularly. Below is Frisco in the leaves - which had all been on the trees an hour and a half before - as he headed out with us.

We took a look left/west up our street (below). Note the telephone pole behind the black vehicle, which turns out to be important.

To the right/east, one of our neighbors (also a tenant, I believe) had already lost a big part of a tree (below).

Below is a closer look.

And a look from right in front (below).

This is looking up St. Matthews Avenue, a street that crosses ours. Power lines had come down and this block was already blocked up. You'll see later that more trees filled this block, which is why I think that perhaps we had gone out too early.

Here's Frisco (below) plowing ahead to part of the "Heart of St. Matthews" intersection, this corner of which had just been re-done.

A cross-walk post (below) had been knocked down, and the clock had stopped an hour and a half earlier.

Below is the cross-walk post up close.

We turned onto Chenoweth lane and passed the Cheoweth Square shopping center, where two large plants (below) had been knocked over.

This is Staebler, a more working-class, tenant-filled block than ours, from behind Heine Brothers coffee shop, which bizarrely got electric power back within a couple of days (before we did). (Supposedly the city sometimes powers up the working-class neighborhoods first, because the lots are small, and more people can get power if they restore power to a block.)

On the left we passed our dry cleaners, where I now have dress shirts laundered. No cleaning is actually done on site and they conducted business during the week, first writing out receipts and later running an extension cord from the hair salon next door, which had power.

As we swung back around onto our street (this walk was only about a quarter of one of the ones Frisco and I do most frequently every morning) smaller trees were down (below).

Now, this tree (below) looks a little bigger.

Trees were also down in the parking lot behind the jeweler (below).

You can'really make out the down power line behind the black car and on the ground by its back tire (which, again, turns out to be very important).

Across the street (below) another neighbor's yard looks like a mess. But it turns out that they were having their driveway and sidewalk re-done anyway. They did use their rented equipment to help out a few neighbors with downed trees.

This (below) was another beginning of long chats with our neighbors, some of whom we had never spoken to before. The mother of the woman on the left had bought PTSA fund-raising catalog items from Vicnent, and so I remembered her.

The woman in the middle (below) was from a family that had recently bought one of the houses across the street. The man on the left wore a kilt, which another neighbor later made fun of.

A detached garage for one of our neighbors had apparently been blown down (below).

That's it for the walk. As it slowly started to get darker earlier, and we continued with no electric power, Stephanie found candles for us a little at night. Below is - I believe - an arty picture of one of the candles. (Stephanie says this is actually the great full moon that was out the first night of no electricity. The weather had been great and the moon full, so the first night wasn't too uncomfortable with no air-conditioning or heat...but of course...still no Vincent.)

Vincent eventually came home (more on this below). His room upstairs is cooled in the summer by a window air-conditioning unit, and the room is by far the hottest in the house. With no A/C, Vincent slept downstairs in our computer room/guest room one or two nights (see below). I asked Stephaine not to open the windows, because that would blow all of the fall allergens into the house. (Vincent also used the absence of electric power/A/C as another excuse to spend time away - including overnight - although it wasn't really getting dark until a little before his usual (in the old, pre-runaway days) bed time.) (Stephanie pointed out this is when Vincent invaded our room saying it was "cooler.")

At all the lights that were out, drivers were supposed to treat these as four-way stops. But plenty of people didn't, especially initially, and some wrecks resulted. After a couple of days, Governor Beshear called in the National Guard - at least those not in Iraq - and they helped direct traffic, among other things (see below and further below - on my way to work).

Stephanie - and, eventually - Vincent - started to clean up. A pile of debris (below) began accumulating next to our driveway - though it turns out the city wouldn't pick up this debris unless it was bagged.

I mistakenly deleted a picture taken on Day 1 - looking up St. Matthews Avenue - after our walk - which showed why our walk maybe wasn't a good idea at that time - because already a lot more trees had fallen down in the block. Stephanie and I figured that this was the offending tangle of wires and trees that had deprived our block of electric power. Already, in the picture below, the city, the utility company, and perhaps neighbors - had cleared away plenty of the debris.

Well, here (below) it still looks pretty bad. Eventually Frisco and I figured out how to crawl through/around this - even early in the morning in the dark - so that we could go back to using one of our three or four walking routes when we felt like going that way.

No late -night blogging or TV-watching, most night meetings (including church meetings) canceled, no cooking and little cleaning, going to bed early and spending time with family (at least with Stephanie - more on Vincent later) (partly with Stephanie and - in the abstract - Vincent - home from school/work) - except for throwing away a bunch of food - I enjoyed not having power for 5 1/2 days.

However, I was surprised Friday night that, when I drove home, pulled into the driveway, and then realized that lights inside our house were on, I let out a yelp. For some reason, the street lights on the street hadn't struck me as unusual at all - although they caught Stephanie's attention a few minutes later when she drove up. We learned later from Diane that - from their houses up and down the block - people had let out yells when the lights came on - and then hung out outside (for the last time - until the next hurricane?) - to celebrate.

(By the way, throughout the ordeal - and some people didn't get power back until even Tuesday - a few neighbors in our general area ran generators throughout - though this has to have been deathly expensive - all of that diesel fuel powering the generators for days and days - not to mention wasteful. I bet some of these people got caught up in saving their food and once they'd spent the time and money and keeping it cold for five days couldn't stop themselves. We did hear stories about people sharing generators and even cooking. Luckily, I don't think anyone on our block ran a generator. Still, taking the dog for a walk in the morning it was quite dark (no street lights) but going north towards the rich people's houses you could hear the generators going. Paraphrasing Robert Duvall in "Apocalypse Now," I quipped: "I love the sound of generators in the morning.")

Below are mediocre pictures of street lights on our block and some of our neighbor's lights on on that Friday night.

Here's a new light that Stephanie bought at Home Depot (on a hurricane repair run) that we'd never used until after electric power came back - for our living room - it worked.

We had just finished cleaning up part of the house from 3 1/2 months of painting/disruption (see "September progress") when Ike hit. Here's what the living room/dining room area looked like that Friday night after the lights came on.

Notice the fast food cups, flashlight, and candles, all signs of Ike and no electricity. We were able to use a candle holder that Stephanie's step-brother, Bobby, had made for her several Christmases ago.

We didn't take any pictures of - mid-way through the week - we throwing away all of the food in the freezer and refrigerator (after grocery shopping only days beforehand). Over the next few days - before and after Friday - Stephanie did something I usually try to do several times a year but rarely get to that often - Stephanie gets to it in spurts - clean the refrigerator. This was a great time to clean the refrigerator - because once we'd emptied it - it was really empty - we didn't have to move things back in. By the time Stephanie had finished with it and the freezer (below) - and it was pretty dirty after too many months not being cleaned and then several days with semi-rotting food in it - they were pretty darn clean! A hint from a co-worker of Stephanie's suggested a small amount of vanilla extract in a cup to make sure the refrigerator didn't smell like plastic/rotting food while it sat empty.

That weekend - after the power came back - we went for another walk and Massie Avenue (below) - a block away - was still blocked off with trees/debris.

Here's Stephanie (below) - she'd had to go back to work for a half day on Friday- but - in general - this was probably on the last day or so of her unscheduled week off (which she may have to make up throughout the year). Here she was picking up leaves and debris but also went on to trim weeds, grass, and so on - here - along the tree in the middle of our back yard.

I think this was during the week after we'd all gone back to work/school. One of the very first parts of the neighborhood I'd noticed when I was looking for "For Rent" signs in preparation for Stephanie and Vincent's spring-break 2005 house-hunting visit was Staebler on the west side of Chenoweth Lane - a rounded extension of the working-class street that runs behind Heine Brothers - in this case, behind our dry cleaners and Vincent's orthodontist's office (and - on the other side - behind the train tracks and the Masonic home campus). In fact, the first house we looked at in St. Matthews (and the third house overall) - was on this block - just a few houses left of this house. This scene was symptomatic of the harsh-ness of the rain-less hurricane strike - as this tree falling down destroyed the car. With the black, spooky-looking car and the hatchet tree, I thought these folks might leave this through Halloween (and - as you shall see - they did leave it pretty long).

Rounding the bend along Staebler and Colonial is a corner house (below) that I looked at after Stephanie and Vincent went back to Bradenton - something like prospective home #33 - and a big tree sawed off that had fallen there.

Crossing Chenoweth Lane - on Massie, blocked a few days earlier - Frisco (below) and I came across the remains of another big tree that had crashed down - this one partly on an adjoining house.

Stephanie, Frisco, and I retraced some of my steps a couple of days later. Here (below) they''re walking on the other side of Staebler (this swing around walk on Staebler - with the cute little houses - is one of the things that sold me on the neighborhood - all the more so with Frisco to walk).

Below are Stephanie and Frisco walking in front of the spooky, smashed-up black car.

In front of that big Alpine/Tudor house on Massie with the big tree down/cut up (below) Stephanie, Frisco, and I ran into another couple taking their picture in front of it - disaster tourism - but with a twist- the young man said he worked for the company that had helped saw off as much of the tree that was already gone.

This (below) is some of what was left of the trees and power lines that had blocked off St. Matthews Avenue - and that we had mistakenly thought was the cause of us losing electric power.

(It turns out that the culprit in our power loss was much less grandiose - and closer. You might recall that a few houses west of us - a power line dangled down by a black sports car - and this - it turns out - was what knocked off our power. A standoff between the power company and the city of St. Matthews - I wrote earlier - kept the St. Matthews Avenue cleanup going slowly - and as I mentioned we had figured that was what was holding our power back. But just repairing the few downed lines a few doors down from us - apparently on Friday - was what finally did the trick.)

You can tell (above) though they'd already made a lot of progress - with part of the tree sawed (and hauled) away. As darkness started to settle in on St. Matthews Avenue (below) - you can tell that the street was now clear enough for cars - and people and dogs - to traverse it - even while there was still some debris to clear.

With some help from Vincent, Stephanie did a whole lot of sweeping and clearing and both chopped down many of the weeds encircling our back yard patio and swept and cleared away lots of Ike debris that had been on the patio - around eight yard waste bags (below).

A week or two later Frisco and I walked on another street several blocks north of us and came across a fancy house with a badly damaged roof (below) . . .

. . . as well as a sign (below) from the residents, who were apparently philosophical about the damage.

-- Perry