I’m alive.

Yep, Hurricane Wilma lingered around the Yucatan, threatened South Florida for days, and then before I could even wink she sliced us. I have no power, thus no place to keep perishable foods, and on top of that, everyone is on edge. Cabin fever!

Hurricane Katrina really opened up my eyes as far as which category hurricane my condo can handle. Katrina was a Category 1 hurricane and my sliding doors were shaking so hard I thought they were about to come loose. I was invited to stay by my friend’s parent’s house in Aventura for the duration of the storm, again. I’ve been going there to take cover from these hurricanes for about a year now and I feel like I am part of their family already! I’m an honorary Jew. �

Although Aventura isn’t really getting out of harms way from the storm, her parents did install hurricane proof windows, glass so thick even a sledge-hammer can’t break ‘em. They are well prepared with food, water, supplies, everything. I have my own room there, and her parents are just plain amazing people. Kind of reminds me of my family in certain aspects. Family values, togetherness, caring. I can go on. This environment makes me miss my family a lot. I want to go home, NOW.

So, four days later, I still don’t have power at my condo, we don’t have power at the house where I am staying and food and gas are becoming scarce. I drove around for an hour yesterday looking for something to eat and found nothing. It’s really bad over here and I don’t think people understand that it’s going to just get worse if power doesn’t come back on anytime soon.

I went back to my condo to assess the damage to the building and there is crap everywhere. Trees down, light poles, power lines, tennis courts are torn up, nothing outside survived. I took the only working elevator up to the fourteenth floor and before I even stepped out I could smell the damage. Almost every condo on the South side of the building had their windows ripped out and had lots of water and wind damage. The apartment across the hallway from mine had their hallway door ripped out. Yes. I am talking about the door in the hallway 2 feet away from my front door. Scary. Condo survived. Food didn’t. Still no power.

So, I’ve been reading a lot and listening to a lot of music. I finally got a chance to see “The Terminal” and “Million Dollar Baby”. Things I’ve been putting off for a very long time, I finally got done, without power. I’m enjoying this power outage. Back to the caveman days, cooking on the grill. Oh yeah, did I mention that when mom was here she cooked for about a month and froze the food? When I went back to the condo, everything in the refrigerator was thrown out, and everything in the freezer was defrosted perfectly. Took it over to the house and we grilled all of the Indian food and made the daal rotis on the side burner. Never thought a grill would come in handy! Now there’s a thought, grilled Indian food. Paneer bhaji, Channa, Gobi bhaji, YUM!

This has been a nice break away from it all. The fast paced internet driven lifestyle I seem to have wrapped myself up in. Let’s hope everyone stays safe and recovers from this blow.

Mother Nature is extremely pissed off.