After the Storm...and the Earthquake.

Hurricane Irene has come and gone, but rest assured that everyone here in BritKnitterville is fine. I hope everyone reading this is safe, too. Irene was downgraded to a Category One hurricane by the time she made landfall in New Jersey. Oddly enough, this is just the third time in the State's history that a hurricane made a direct hit. This was the first time that we boarded up the windows of the Museum where I work.



Irene caused the evacuation of Cape May County (yes a whole county of people!) and most of the shore communities on the coast. Fortunately my little house in Fortescue is on the Delaware Bay side of the state, but I would say that just about everyone left the island for higher ground, even though evacuation was not mandatory. My sister and I drove down there this morning to check on things, and there were lots of trees and wires down (and no power on the island), but fortunately not a lot of property damage. My little house survived with only the loss of one of the window shutters. Whew!

Not only did we have a Hurricane this week, we also had an Earthquake! In New Jersey! Ok, so technically it wasn't centered in New Jersey, but it sure felt like it! I can't imagine what it was like in Virginia. One minute I was sitting at the computer at in the Museum's library, and my chair starts rolling. I look up, and the hanging lights are swinging. We ran out into the museum (a GLASS museum, by the way) and the ginormous chandeliers in the lobby are swinging. Being in a glass museum in an earthquake is not my idea of fun, by the way. An earthquake in New Jersey...very strange.

In other news, I have a fourth dog. Well, HAD a fourth dog. For 24 hours. He wandered into the yard last Sunday and started eating the cats' food in the garage. He had a collar, but no tags and I named him Russell. Why? He's a Jack Russell Terrier, so what better name for this sweet boy?



To make a long story short, I will never take another dog in to the local SPCA to be scanned for a microchip. I will wait until my Vet's office opens and let them scan the dog. The local SPCA took Russell from me to scan him (no chip, by the way), and wouldn't let me take him back home! I told them I would give them all of my information in case the owner turned up, but they said they couldn't legally release him to me since I wasn't the owner. I never heard of that before. I took Cooper there three years ago to be scanned and they released him to me. Not Russell. They said I could come back in 7 days and fill out an application for adoption. Let me tell you, I was a mess. I was crying, which got another woman crying, and then two more women came to see what we were crying about and they started crying. Still, I had to leave without Russell... I posted his picture on Craig's List and Missing Pet.com, and hung posters in local stores. In the end it was the posters that reunited Russell with his owner. No more SPCA for me!

I'm sharing this picture just because it's so cute:



That's my dad, with his hair all messy and dirty knees. Doesn't he look great? Especially considering that he has had a rough year with two cancer surgeries. (Still cancer free!!!) He is working on a ramp for the shed at Fortescue. He is happiest when he has a project, and the Fortescue house is an endless source of projects for him. Endless, until the money runs out, which it does on a regular basis. I just made my second mortgage payment, and oddly enough it still doesn't feel like it's MY house. I still have that "trespassing" feeling when I walk in. This helps, though:



It is a picture of my first Brittany, Scarlett. My sister had an artist friend of hers do it for me shortly before I lost my sweet Scarlett. Now, every time I walk in the front door, this is what I see:




Yep, that's my house alright. Scarlett watches over it for me while I am away.