Irene...

Wow.... THAT was some trip, huh? So we experienced rain... Did I mention that we got lots of rain too? Oh, and rain. We got RAIN! And some wind. But we also got rain. Yes, we may have experienced a bit of moisture from the rain.
Of course we experienced Irene on the last "official week" of summer vacation and it sucked. I posted on FB that my post about it was brought to everyone by the middle finger. Yes, I typed that whole post with my middle finger because of that.
Irene tried to take my garbage can, but only managed to knock it over. We didn't lose power, we had cable and internet throughout most of the storm and the only storm damage I saw on our street was a couple of leaves and maybe a branch or two. That was it. The media hype about the whole thing left me wondering what the hell the big deal was about. I thought New England was supposed to get hammered...
It turns out that we were just lucky. Like "Praise be to Jesus!" lucky. With flooding damages, some people were knee deep in water. The gusts of wind in certain areas knocked down trees. We had a tree on an intersecting street that was laying across wires and knocked a few of them down. The way the street "S" curves, in the dark, it would have been easy to NOT see it until it was too late. I stood out on the street at night to flag down people with a flashlight so that they didn't hit the hanging branches or the power lines... It freaked me out. I called the power company and the police and I stayed there until SOMEONE came by to tape it off and do something because it was an accident waiting to happen.
There were people without power for days... There are STILL people without power even now.... It's unbelievable! Homes were damaged, some homes were lost. People evacuating their HOMES to seek shelter somewhere that ISN'T their HOME and weather out the storm only able to pray that they would have a home to go to when it was all said and done....
I felt like an ass. I was huffing and puffing and bitching about how NOT impressed I was with the storm and yet there were those who lost so much in that very same storm. Then I realized that I needed to be thankful about the graces we had been given in our area when up a street, they weren't as lucky.
When put into perspective, there are some things that aren't so bad or aren't as bad as I thought they would be and I guess in stead of being resentful that they aren't or complaining about it, I need to be thankful... A lesson learned.