Category: Weather

I’m in a bit of a panic right now. Been watching the news all day and it definitely looks like hurricane Rita’s making her way over here. So far it looks like it’s going more towards Galveston and Houston, but you just never know if it’ll go a bit more south. If it does, we’re screwed. This hurricane’s been in the water so long I’m afraid to know what category it’s going to be by the time it makes landfall. I feel so bad for the people who live in Galveston and Houston; and for us down here if it hits us. Maybe it isn’t such a good idea to be watching this documentary on the History channel–they’re mostly talking about hurricane Katrina.

So far, we haven’t prepared at all. Even with hurricane Emily we were at the Dollar General as soon as word was out that it would be here in a few days buying water, canned food and batteries. They say it should be here by Friday night and we haven’t done shit.

What if it does come down here and it’s a Category 3+? My in-laws’ house is wood-frame and over 20 years old, I feel sick just thinking about what might happen. Our apartment might make it since it was built just a few years ago, but their house??

I’m on the verge of hyperventilating. Oh gosh, and the flooding! I’m not talking about the type of flooding that happened in New Orleans, I’m talking just a few inches, maybe 2 feet of flooding. It floods REALLY BAD in front of our apartment and the back of my in-laws’. Just 2 weekends ago when there was a 30-minute thunderstorm John and I were out there sweeping the water out and frantically trying to pile up sandbags to keep the water out. We need more sandbags *bites nails*.

Gotta think of something else…um…started on Access today at school. It’s pretty interesting and not as difficult as I thought it’d be. We had an assignment, where we had to make up a company and employees and add them to a database and guess what our company name (Lucy, Rossy, and mine—Mayra, Ricci and Joe were in another group) was? 80’s Antiques. And I swear it wasn’t just my idea, Lucy was actually the one who brought it up . It was cool. We finished pretty early so I made a banner out of some of my collections pics. Can’t wait to see what else we’ll do.

I feel a little better. John’s making fun of me because I’m freaking out and publicly posting about it, but just wait. Just wait till the hurricane’s almost here—he’s going to turn inside out with paranoia and write in all caps in his blog. Ha!

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This is why I stopped watching CMT.

I’m watching the top 20 Count Down and holy moly, I’ve got a lump in my throat. All the songs are so touching, but extremely depressing . Watch the video for “Somebody’s Hero” by Jamie O’neil and you’ll be crying like a baby. *sobs*

I’ve done a lot the past few days, aside from going to school. Mostly having to do with me driving around like a maniac after school (with poor Ricci in tow) since I have thousands of errands to run every day.

On Wednesday, I had to pick Mom up from the Social Security office, take her to pick up some stuff at Wal-mart, we stopped by to see Gramma for a few minutes, and then I had to drop her off allll the way to her house. Then I had to drop Ricci off and pick up Eenan.

Thursday, we were relieved I didn’t have anything to do. On the way home, when we were driving through Mission, I get a call from Mary saying her van died on her and if I could turn back and pick her up. Went back (in the pouring rain), Ricci and I laughing, blushing, and joking about things a husband and wife do together. Since I was on the phone, Mary took over driving and drove to make a payment (she was on her way over there during her lunch hour when the van died), bought some transmission oil, went to the bank and she filled my gas tank. (Since the rise in gas prices, my tank now fills with about $27, and this is a compact car!)

Ricci drove on the way to Mary’s van, where she was going to add the transmission fluid and we were going to follow her to her office and made sure she made it there. I didn’t want to drive because it was flooding and was about to storm heavily, and I’m still a bit traumatized from the time Sonia and Noelia got into that car accident about 6 years ago when it was raining. On the way over to Mary’s office, we saw at least 3 car accidents—craziness.

After school yesterday, Ricci and I went grocery shopping and didn’t realize how late it was when we were done so I had to rush to drop her and her groceries off, then go straight to Eenan’s school and pick him up.

Today, I am taking it easy. Mario took the car, so I’m chilling out at home wearing my “I’m not doing shit today” shirt, as John calls it. (My “I’m not doing shit today shirt” is usually a shirt about 3 sizes too big for me accompanied by boxers that I wear to sloth around the house.) I had bills to pay, but I guess it’ll wait till Tuesday. 3-day weekend baby!

I’ll probably take some time to study for my Certification Exam. I did the 2002 practice Expert Exam and got an 89, which I guess is good since some of the questions were totally different from how we’d do something in the 2003. The two girls who took the exam a few days ago didn’t pass. I think I heard the teacher say they were about 45 points away from passing. I’m hoping and praying that, even if I can’t pass with a 1000 like I’d like to, that I at least pass with the least amount of points required to pass, which is 630. I really want my Masters in Microsoft!

The whole situation with Eenan and school is basically the same. Elda volunteered to drop him off in the mornings with Sammy and Brandon. It’s a great idea since he’ll be there later, and there’ll be more kids there and hopefully he won’t feel as inclined to cry with Sammy and Brandon around. I still need to talk with someone about maybe switching him to a different class. I felt so miserable on Friday when he told me while climbing into the car after school that he only had one friend. And that one friend is the one who swung him from his sweatshirt and made him fall on his back . I hope his year gets better very soon.

We went to visit Jorge and Maggie last night. They’re holding up okay. They’re making plans on what to do and Jorge may already have a new job lined up with a relative. I’m so glad. Jorge doesn’t ever want to go back to doing audio/video auto work again .

On a lighter note, we have 3 more additions to the family. Well, for now anyway. Brushka went into labor on Wednesday afternoon, right after I’d come home from dropping Mom and Ricci off. I didn’t even think she was ready to deliver yet, she still looked small!

John said she was walking around, very apprehensively all day and when I got home, she immediately lay down on her side and her stomach started contracting. I barely had time to sit down (and turn on the camera!), when she started pushing the first baby out. His name is Dewey Enchilirido (John’s name choice, not mine!). He looks almost exactly like Brushka, except he doesn’t have a cream-colored belly. The second one born is a girl, and her name’s Tippy, since the tip of her tail (and paws!) are white. The third one’s a girl too, looks almost exactly like Tippy, but we haven’t come up with a name for her yet. John’s keeping Dewey, Sonia might take one of the kittens and I’m not sure who the third’s going to yet. As much as I’d LOVE to keep them ALL, we can’t. We already have too many cats *sniff*.

Brushka did a fabulous job for being a first-time mom. I had to frantically search online for what to do, since she didn’t know what to do about the umbilical cord. I read on several sites to tightly knot some floss or thread about an inch away from the belly, and cut with scissors, so I did, and they’re ok! She loves her babies; she’s so dedicated! She’ll eat, drink water, go to the bathroom in her litter box and then immediately goes back to her children. I’m so happy !

I’m going to finish this coffee and then, I shall watch TV. Or read. Or surf the ‘net. Oh the possibilities! I never thought I’d be happy to just be home!

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We survived the hurricane. It wasn’t as bad as everyone assumed it would be. We did get a lot of rain, which lead to a bit of flooding in the yard but Mario suited up in a raincoat and boots and dug trenches here and there to help the water flow out. We ended up losing power at around 1pm and it was fixed around 5pm. There were tornado warnings and then watches till around 7pm, but nothing hit our area. So glad everyone and everything are okay .

While the lights were out and the kids were at Mary’s and then at Elda’s, John, Mario, and I lit candles all over the house. We sat around, listened to the radio and kept going outside to see what was going on. At one point, while feeling extremely claustrophobic and bat-shit-crazy, John said, “What if the electricity never comes back and we have to live like in the middle ages?! I DON’T HAVE A SWORD!! We must pillage!”

I just stared at him and said, “And what? Take the neighbor’s canned goods?”

Mr. I Want the Hurricane To Come. He didn’t know what to do with himself for those few hours.

Mario and John ended up falling asleep because they were that bored, the boys were still with Mary, so I found it the perfect, quiet time to start reading the Harry Potter series. It was so nice reading in the dark by candle & lantern light and hearing the rain tapping on the windows. I’m on Chapter 10 of book 1–slow reader . Mary, Yadira, Sonia and Noelia would have been done by now, but I’ve only read at night so I’m excused. I was going to start from book 4 since I’ve already seen the first 3 movies (cheater, I know), but decided I’d just read all of them. Hope to finish soon so I can read the last (most recent) book!

This morning, I got ready, ate a quick breakfast, woke Mario up and called to the high school I graduated from to ask about my transcript and if I could get a new, dated one or if they could date the one I already had. I called at 10, and the woman said she’d look for my file and she’d call me back. It was 11:40 and she still hadn’t called, so I called her. She said she couldn’t find my file, so I had to call Central. I told her about how they’d given me the run-around already (the receptionist, who I’d talked to twice already had gotten my info and said she’d tell someone to call me back but never did). The lady basically said there was nothing else she could do, so I called Central again and spoke to the lady I’d spoken to before. I told her I REALLY needed my transcript and a copy of my diploma (which they said they also needed) so if she could look for it we’d be on our way. Mario and I got into an argument about it–he didn’t want to drive over there if he didn’t have to. I couldn’t believe how he was acting knowing very well how important this was to me. After throwing a little crying fit, I finally composed myself and we left. It was a disaster. The transcript I had (which was a copy I’ve had since I got out of high school when I was going to start college back then) had two classes and credits that the one the lady had filed didn’t have. The one she had, had info from my 10th grade year that the one I had didn’t. The one she had also stated I only had 21.5 credits, when I needed 24 to graduate. She knew for sure I graduated since she had a copy of my diploma. She took the time to work out my GPA (which was 3.5), added all the grades in, signed it and stamped it. I was so grateful I couldn’t stop saying thank-you. She was super busy!

We took the transcript to my advisor and everything’s good to go, thank GOD. First day of school’s on Tuesday. What’s cool is that we have a very lenient dress code. I asked her what I should wear that day, since we don’t have our Polo’s yet, and she pointed to my black Strawberry Shortcake T, jeans and black flip-flops and said, “Something like what you’re wearing. Very casual. We’re not strict with the dress code.” Frijoles frescos! (Cool beans ROFL!)

The parts for Mario’s Prelude haven’t come in yet, but Noelia doesn’t start school till August so Mario can take her car to work and I can take the Sentra till we get the Prelude ready. *whew*

We stopped by Mary’s office afterwards, chatted for a while then went to eat at Jesse’s. Since we’re low on cash, we ordered from the “cheapie” part of the menu. Mario recommended the “Super Q”, which is a Super Quesadilla, which came with rice and beans. I figured 1 taco was good for me, and the rice and beans would definetly fill me up. I was in utter shock when they brought me a taco that was almost the size of a pizza when it’s folded in half! I only ate half, but man was it delicious.

We drove around for a while trying to kill time till Mom got out of work. We passed by a few houses we liked and took pictures. We’ve been really into homes lately since we’re just itching to buy a house in a few years. We want to be sure and confident with our ideas/plans for building our house.

We picked Mom up at 4:30, stopped to rent a movie, checked the post office (my driver’s license came in–my picture’s even more hideous than I had anticipated!), and then we came home. Mom’ll be staying with us for 3 days while Aunt Nora and Tio Arturo are on vacation in San Antonio.

Mom and I chilled out at Mary’s talking with Mary, Elda, and Elda’s mom and then I came back here and downloaded a few songs. Gotta make myself an MP3 disc to hear on my way to school on Tuesday .

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