I'm out and about: Tropical Storm Best Birthday Ever!

So, as you may have heard, a hurricane happened on the east coast in August.
I'm aware that Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene did a lot of actual damage, including in my own bourgh of Queens, where power was out, houses were flooded, and falling trees did damage. Further south it was a real hurricane and did some real destruction.
However, I do love storms. And this was the first Tropical Storm I've been in, and the first Hurricane I've ever had to prepare for, and being lucky enough to not to be hit hard by this storm, I had a lot of fun.
I happen to find the descriptions my weather app uses funny and delightful, and I love the huge difference between the days before the hurricane and the day of pretty awesome.

So, Irene wasn't supposed to hit with full force until the morning of the 28th. I woke up on my birthday to it being cloudy and very humid. About every 40 mins there would be a downfall of rain, then it would stop. Clearly I decided to go check out the grocery store.

The grocery store was a mess. I'd already known that you couldn't find a battery in the city for the last two days. A woman in line for coffee with me on Thursday was bragging that she went into a taxi shop and bought batteries off them. In any case, I always have flashlights and batteries, so I wasn't worried. The line in the store was wrapping around the dairy section, the soup and canned food section was empty, and the only water left was sparkling. Nick and I were already pretty stocked up on canned foods naturally (I happen to love lentils, beans, and chickpeas) and we weren't bothering buying water when we have so many empty containers at home. So instead I bought a pineapple, some little debbies, and chips and salsa. My fears that I wasn't good at which foods to buy were calmed when I checked out what the people in front of and behind me had. In front: 20 packs of ramen noodles, 2 cases of beer, and 2 gallons of water. Behind: a carton of eggs, a gallon of milk, and cheese.

Grocery shopping done, I was kinda bored. I went to my favorite coffee shop/bar to wait for Nick to wake up and join me. I ran into 2 of my friends there and we all had a drink together and watched the storm inch closer on my friend's ipad satelite app.

This place was only open til 4, as were most things in the neighborhood. At this point the storm was slamming into North Carolina pretty hard. One of my friends was from Florida, so he warned us to take it seriously at this point, better safe than sorry. So Nick and I left to prepare our home. And eat a burrito.

We got home and filled as many old bottles and empty pitchers with water as we could. We had already been making ice for the past two days so our freezer was pretty full. We were told the more things in there the longer things would stay cool if the power went out. We filled our bathtub with water and debated taping the windows but ultimately decided it wasn't worth it. We are on the 2nd floor with not too many windows, not high enough to get battered by winds but too high to flood. We are a good distance from any water and within walking distance of an emergency shelter. Basically we were as safe a could be.

We also decided to make "go bags". In went beef jerky, safety pins (to sell to people at the shelter), our computers, passports, trivial pursuit, some books, change of clothes, pills, journals, clue, and hoodies. We were set.

Feeling super-prepared, we now setteled in to be super bored.

That lasted all of 10 mins before we decided to go take pictures and dance in the rain.

We are making an "i" for Irene

We got a call from a friend who works at said coffee shop, who had just gotten off work and went to hang out with some friends for awhile. I took this picture of the sign on starbucks on the way. Nick and I were originally both supposed to work, but with all public transportation shutting down Saturday at noon, pretty much all businesses had to close because no one could come to work.

We hung out for a while and then went home again. As it got later the winds started picking up and we went to bed bracing ourselves for the worst of it.

When I woke up the next morning it was not even raining.

The storm damage outside our apt.

And thus started one of the weirdest days I've ever had in NYC. Besides a few of the older trees being knocked down my neighborhood was in good shape.

And the smell outside was incredible. It went beyond smelling fresh and clean like it does after a rain, it smelled amazing. I can't even describe it, but it smelled like the most delicious country landscape ever, only in the middle of the city, which was just weird.

Public transportation was still down, and most business were closed, having already told their employees not to come in.

So Nick and I joined what was bascially our entire neighborhood in wandering around pointlessly, looking for any signs of a storm. I have never seen so many people out just walking the streets.