Top things I learned about Ike:

1) He was late to arrive.

I had virtually all the laundry and dishes done waiting for the jerk to show up. I should have vacuumed and ran the dishwasher once more, but thought that with him being rude and not showing up earlier, surely he wouldn't overstay his welcome once he got here. Um, wrong.

Before he came into town, I took some before shots after we prepped the yard by removing anything that you wouldn't want to slam into your head should you venture out in the winds.

Back yard:

Front yard:

Neighbor's house:

I thought there would be many more clouds on Friday ahead of the storm, but they hadn't come in by sunset, which most of my neighbors across the street pulled out their lawn chairs and coolers to the end of the driveway to check out:

As I was snapping those shots, the first sign of Ike showed up in this landing at my feet:

I went to bed with the kids, listening to my air filter, comfortable under my ceiling fan, the a/c cranked down to 69 degrees at about 10 pm. For a short time, I listened to the wind and the small branches it was tossing around, and worried obsessively about a tornado. But I figured I would feel the house shake if one hit us, so I drifted off with Eye Candy and his friends outside in the street drinking beer and having a party. At 2:40 am, I was awakened by the silence disrupted by a beeping from our power strip. Eye Candy had gone inside by that point, and I understood why. You could hear the larger branches hitting the house.

Mower and I stayed up for a while, sitting on the airbed he had placed in the living room floor in case we didn't feel safe upstairs. It was impossible to see outside at that time, so we tried to get some more sleep since the winds didn't seem serious enough to rip the roof off. I honestly thought the power would come back on once Ike left. He was still going strong once it became light, and I snapped these:

2) Ike is a poor landscaper and treetrimmer.

The dude left debris everywhere and was very sloppy in his tree-trimming work. I mean, honestly--the guy can uproot trees, but he left us the one in the front yard that leaves us nasty hard little shells and a ton of branches if someone sneezes in its direction.

We were incredibly lucky though...the branches all managed to avoid our structures. The top of this tree:

landed here:

He snapped a few more branches that we will have to get down soon:

One branch landed on the luggage carrier, which spared the Conformity Mobile from getting damage:

And he littered the front yard pretty well:

Out of view in that shot are a couple of large piles of the branches that snapped off. It appeared as if each yard contained the litter only from their own trees. No trees, no litter. The newer neighborhoods close to us looked like they got the HOA boards together and voted to not have a hurricane in their neigborhood, with the exception of a few knocked-down fences.

My neighbor got the raw end of the deal, although it's great that it only went through the roof of the porch and not their living space:

3) Ike is a motivator for cleaning.

Well, in some areas. I wanted to vacuum like a stranded person wants water and internet porn. I have completely ignored the fact that I could have, once the water came back on and since we have a gas water heater, mopped the floors. Or even swept. But no, I wanted to vacuum and since I couldn't do that, all the floors were punished by staying icky from the gunk we brought in on our feet when we cleaned up the yard or cooked on the grill.

I avoided the fridge and freezer for a couple days, choosing instead to act as if the lights were going to finally come back on. When they didn't, and we went from saying during the storm, "What was that?" when we'd hear a noise to opening the fridge and playing a game of "What was that?" I went in and threw away almost everything. I scrubbed down the inside, which has been waiting to be done since the baby was a newborn, but once the doors are closed I completely forget that the nastiness inside the fridge has started to form sororities and fraternities and are pledging by making the veggies drink pickle juice until they pass out.

So Ike helped me by forcing me to clean something:

4) Ike answers questions I have had for a while.

Like, does it still look like there are lights beyond Eye Candy's house even when the lights are off? Yes, it does, and that totally perplexes me, because I look out the window when the whole city has power, and can never see stars, only the glow of lights. I looked out the window when the entire city doesn't have power, and still cannot see stars thorugh what looks like the glow of street lights. HUH?

Also, how long does it take for me to smell like a dead wolverine when I am cleaning up the yard? That took about half an hour, and seemed to eminate directly from my crotch. I wonder why, but then remembered before Ike I did douche with Eau du Dead Wolverine and Strawberries.

And how big will the mosquitos get during this period, while everyone is outside cleaning up their yard with a big bullseye on their arms and legs just inviting the annoying buggers to come and suck on us? The answer is larger than our Shih Tzus, and just as aggressive about biting our ankles. See Handsome trying to grab a root to stay near the ground? He's being lifted up by the skeeters.

5) Ike is like a menstrual cycle.

Six hours shy of exactly a week from when he turned off the power, we got it back on. And right after we bought a generator, of course. It's like putting in a tampon to preventatively stop the flow and then finding out you are pregnant. I could not help but capture the joyous moment on camera (of the power being back on, not of a menstrual flow):

All snarkiness aside, I am extremely grateful that we only got a week out of power. Our home is standing, we didn't flood, and everyone is healthy. Ike was a real inconvenience, but it could have been worse.