I'm baaaaack!

I cannot believe how long it has taken to get back online! Talked to TH weeks ago and hearing about people with and without online capabilities. Being primary care team leader for Parkinson's parent and grandson left me little time to run to town and find a WiFi hotspot. I made it into town once and paid my online bills. Anxious that once the electricity, cable and cell finally came on the lack of payment would immediately turn them off!

TH had assured me of quite a few hotspots for WiFi but I couldn't find the one at Shilo, nor the one that AT&T said would be open for those paying bills, nor UPS' for paying bills. I tried at Starbucks, also, no luck. Obviously, this was on a shopping run to Freddy's. On another day I finally found an opening downtown Astoria but kept loosing it. I paid bills quickly and my husband had a heart attack that I had left our accounts vulnerable. We do use Mozilla and the connection kept breaking up so at least there is a little comfort there.

All of this is small potatoes compared to the devastation so many experienced. Flooding and slides surrounded us to the north, south and east. To the west is the ocean, waiting to claim back what it has always felt is rightfully its own. How many Indian villages lie at the bottom of sea? How soon before Astoria joins them?

Barometric pressure drops and my pain sky rockets. As the relief washes over me that in our small world we have survived with only a few scratches I am assessing what we could have done to help more, groan less, be better neighbors. Since it appears that we have a category 2 hurricane and should be prepared for more of these to hit our area as our globe experiences some sort of climate change, there are quite a few things to contemplate this holiday season.

As soon as I can wrestle the camera away from Eldest I will post some of the pics we took. TH has the best photos, by far, but we got a few more. By the way, TH, whose forest did you get a snapshot of that had been devastated by the storm.