Tropical Storm Hannah and Hurricane Maya

As we braced for Tropical Storm Hannah, I spent the early hours of the day buying canned foods, emergency supplies, and boarding the windows...ok well I didn't do any of that but I did wait in anticipation.  The result?  Disappointment. 

The picture below was taken on Saturday night from my roof at around 10 pm in the eye of the storm.  What ended up happening was some rain and an occasional gust of wind that made Seattle Inaugural Day storms look like category 5 demons.  Essentially, the word tropical and storm should be taken out of future Hannah's and her offspring. 

The second picture is from this evening revealing no damage and a nice sunset, leaving little memory of the terror of a storm that hit just moments before.  Today when I ventured out into the remains of TSH I came across a little girl selling lemonade and some of her old educational books from the year before.  Next to her laid a cardboard sign labeled, "Stoop Sale."  I love Brooklyn.  

So I asked her what the going rate was for a cup of lemonade and she said 10 cents with a bit of an embarrassed look, she couldn't have been older than 10.  I then told her I would give her a dollar if she had whipped it up herself.  She said she had and I began a short economics lecture informing her that in order to make a profit she was going to need to raise the price.  After walking away I realized her advertising campaign was sheer brilliance.  How many other walkers by had she sheepishly told the meager dime price to just to get a larger donation?  I then felt as though she could have given me the lecture.  But the experience added a kick to my step just knowing that here in the urban setting of Brooklyn were the old days of lemonade stands run by future business leaders.  She had also informed me that she had read all of the 20 plus books strewn about on towels on the sidewalk.  Keep up the studies young one. 

 

Finally this weekend included a pleasant but smelly surprise.  While we were distracted by the wind and rain outside, Hurricane Maya had hit us unaware.  After tracing the stench behind the tv stand in the living room, two bodies were in the slow process of decomposing.  The victims, Mat and his friend, were apparently no match for the wits of our Bronx breed hunter.  Below are the makeshift graves I had to quickly put together to remove the corpses and quell the girlish screams that began on the living room couch and echoed behind the closed doors of two bedrooms.  When the cowardly housemates reemerged from their safe harbors, I was commended with a  "thank God we have a man in the house," and quizzed with "was this the grossest thing I had ever done."  Sadly, no.