We still have no power at our house. My sister called me up yesterday and asked me, "Is this a parallel universe? Or a third world country? Or some weird time travel scenario?" And I knew exactly what she was talking about. It's so odd: we are sorely lacking in many amenities which are standard for a modern first-world country, yet at the same time, I am able to text message my friends and family.

I can't remember when I last had a hot shower. After a week without electricity my husband caved in and bought a generator. We now have one room downstairs with a small window unit AC. Prior to the generator the family across the street had kindly strung an extension cord across the street so that we could have a decent fan.

We sleep on air mattresses in the living room with a sheet strung across the entryway to keep the cold air in. At night we have three lamps that plug into the surge strip. During the day I can actually run the washing machine, though I still have to hang the clothes out to dry on the line in the backyard.

How's this for irony? A couple of weeks ago my dryer died, and in that span of time before we bought a new dryer we were hanging our clothes out to dry, and worrying that meighbors might complain since is probably violated some sort of neighborhood convenant. Now everybody has clotheslines in the back!

I spent three days on search and recovery teams. I now have a lovely cough, no doubt from breathing in far too much mold and funk. I have blisters on blisters on my feet and my neck and arms are a deep shade of brown--and that was with SPF 45 sunscreen. Too bad my legs are still fishbelly white. I also have some sort of intestinal bug, again most likely picked up from something I touched amidst all of the nastiness of flooded houses.

Thankfully, I am now back on my regular hours in my office. And, I have internet at the office! The long painful drought is over!

I'm sorry I'm not giving more details of the actual destruction, but it's really just too much to go into right now. It's like the hand of god just came and swept everything aside. This area will never ever be the same again.

However, Anna is absolutely loving the whole air-mattress-on-the-floor thing. And she has learned how to do a somersault.