Thanks a LOT, Otto

Sorry for the unintentional blog hiatus. What was supposed to be nothing more than a few scattered showers turned into a full-blown hurricane that would not move. We had about five days of sideways rain that resulted in loss of beach, an indefinite delay on all imports, and a very leaky ceiling (at one point I had EIGHT vessels collecting water scattered throughout the house). Amazingly we only lost power for a few hours through it all. I left the house three, count them, three times from Monday until Saturday – once to get groceries, once to go out to dinner, and once to use the school’s bathroom (that was during the power outage, and I don’t want to talk about it). Two good things came from the storm, though: A) We finally had reason to use the huge plastic poncho we bought over a year ago, and B) It sort of felt like fall. I had to wear layers to bed at night!! But now it’s passed and everything is back to the usual – hot, hot, hot.

Pictures! Our lovely beach, which used to look like this:

now looks like this:

because of this:

One other exciting thing: There was an earthquake! I think. I’m more certain of it this time than the last time, which just ended up being Penny chewing her leg in the middle of the night. I’m pretty sure I felt shaking, and there definitely wasn’t an itchy dog at the foot of my bed this time, and when I checked the seismic activity it turned out there had been a small quake near Puerto Rico that same morning. So.