Tales From Rita 3 - My story

I was at first determined to stay but my sister and brother convinced me to go with them, that and a possible 20 foot storm surge in Galveston Bay. Maps show it would flood from La Porte through Deer Park to most of Pasadena. Once I made up my mind they couldn't decide on where to go.

Finally Thursday (correction) morning after an invitation they decided on a good friend of my sisters relatives who lived up by A&M. However Bill had not filled up his tank with gas and we all at different times kept forgetting to load the 25+ gallons of fuel tanks we keep around. We spent almost two hours siphoning gas from from my sister's car to his truck through the tiny ice maker tubing cut from the back of my Dad's refrigerator.

We took two dogs and a cat and hit the rode at 9:20 AM. (Other two cats who are more wild were left with supplies and liter boxes on the 2nd floor.)

Meanwhile Pat was up till early AM capturing her stray cats and went to a friend's house in Humble before 6 AM.

We managed to get to the 290 feeder and saw that 290 was impossible. I realized we could take Clay Road to 6 and try that but soon 740 KTRH recommended that as an alternative as well. The last 45 minutes we had gone just over a mile on Clay Road and I was suggesting checking if David Forbus was riding out the storm although the remaining mile might take an hour by car and I wondered about his roof.

My sister decided to try a friend of hers at Chimney Rock and 59 and we turned around. But then we couldn't reach her by phone. Traffic not headed north out of town was great.

We decided to try my brother's at Wesleyan and Bellaire despite their small house with his sick mother-in-law. He was home preparing a hurricane party and had invited a friend and her animals over. Sue, his wife Amy's mother, had gone to Austin with a nurse friend of hers. Technically we were only on the road from 9:20 to 11:40 AM but an hour and a half of that was to go about 3 miles.

The upscale grocery stores were open till 6 and we stocked up on expensive wines and cheeses and sandwich meat and such. Kat and her daughter and boyfriend showed up and made arrangement to come over Friday morning with her animals and take over one of the two bedrooms. Thursday night I had the couch while my sister Charlene and Bill shared a tiny twin bed . Bill, Charlene and I had the living room to sleep in Friday night. Jim and Amy had their own room.

Watched DVDs (*Team America*, *Harold and Kumar go to White Castle*, *John Cleese's Wine for the Confused*, *The Core*) before the hurricane while grazing and drinking. The animals turned out to be 9 cats, 2 rats and a dog. Like Pat she was rescuing neighborhood cats.

(Have I mentioned I am attracted to animal lovers? And to creative women, and to intelligent women, and to many other women? I agree with my brother, I like women! I like the way the look, the way they walk, the way they smell, the way the think, the way they talk. I like the secret steely core within them all. I like women!)

Left early Saturday after my brother fixed me fried eggs, fresh hash browns, and refried beans. No power in either my Dad's or our house. Could tell that side of Houston had been through a category 1 hurricane winds on the dry side. One inch of water in Dad's rain gauge. Minor damage at our house, a gutter came down and another pulled loose about a foot - it was already a little loose. Our old house had part of a water spout from the gutter detach as well as a couple boards from the fence.

About noon power restored to my Dad's. Most sections around us have power in La Porte including Brent's but not us.

Pat had the worst damage, except for Victory below, - a big tree in her front yard split in half and another large tree in her back yard lost a quarter off the top.

The next day grocery stores and gasoline came back Sunday after noon. Bill went into work at the railroad 2 PM. With still no power in our section of Somerton I spent Sunday moving refrigerated and frozen food back to Dad's and cooking stuff that needed to be used. The cats are staying there but aren't happy about the 86 F. temperature. If it gets warmer we will move them here. But it didn't.

Sunday night power restored and half of cable channels back - but not cable internet. Monday everything OK but I almost had a heat stroke from working outside - we have record breaking temperatures and high humidity.