Frog and Goat

We rode out Ernesto at the rental cottage. Aside from sleeping on the couches downstairs because of the terrific amount of noise the wind and rain were making bouncing off the roof and second story, the storm was fine. We missed two days of sunny weather but that’s really no big deal considering. On our way home today we saw lots of flooded homes. I sent good vibes to every house that suddenly was water-front.

We knew our power at home was out by Friday afternoon. It is still out now. The generator that we purchased after moving is finally getting used. I don’t have any real confidence that we’ll get power back by Monday. There are two spots where the power lines are a scrambled mess. And, those are only the two spots we saw after we got off the interstate. I’m sure the power company is more concerned with the bigger destruction that took place along Virginia’s coast than our little neck of the woods.

We’re also pretty sure that tonight is our cat’s last night on Earth. He hasn’t been doing well for awhile now but he is in that stage tonight where I’m just trying to make sure he’s comfortable. Leon and I have been kicking around together for sixteen years. I’ll miss him when he’s gone.

So, the house we decided to try this year because it had such a nice water view turned out to be a huge dump. The only nice thing about it was the view. Honestly, I have never seen a house in such shabby condition and we’ve been coming here since the early 1990s and have stayed in many houses/apartments. As soon as we walked into the house our hearts sank. We spent the first night in a funk. The next day and a half we spent more than half of all conversation discussing how horrible the house was. Then the AC died. The realty company rep came out and managed to get it running. We went to the beach. We got back and the AC was dead again. It was after hours. The realty company rep came back and frankly told us the house was a dump and they were planning on having a serious talk to the owner about renovations. We weren’t the first people to have issues in that house. He asked us to give him a 10 minute headstart and then we could come over to the office and pick another house.

I think we were packed and out of that dump in an hour. This morning we went back over to finish our quick cleanup–gathering up the trash and the recycling. The realty people are already working out cutting us a check to reimburse us between the cost of the craptastic house and the marvelous house we’re now in (yes, bigger, better equiped house and we’re paying less). We have a view of the lighthouse and excellent breezes come in on the front porch. The bed is really pretty comfortable and I’m happy to say there are plenty of comfortable places to sit in this new house (there were none in the craptastic house–seriously, not one comfortable place to sit).

We took some pictures of the less flattering pieces of the craptastic house and a small video. I’ll have to edit those when we get back home and I’ll post.

The house we’re in now is part of a four house compound. One extended family owns all four houses and takes good care of them. We’ve stayed in one of the smaller ones for years and have always wondered what this house we’re in now was like on the inside. It’s how I would set up a beach house. These owners care about hospitality and you can tell they enjoy coming down and vacationing here too.

This morning I was sitting in a doctor’s office and there was a woman who hacked, hacked, hacked instead of getting up and getting a drink of water. She hacked so much that my throat got dry and I got up to get a drink of water. From the pitcher on the other side of the small, tiny room we were forced to sit in.

And, before you say, “what do you expect, you were at the doctor’s.” I should tell you we were there for mammograms not curing the creeping crud. Hack, hack, hack is what I expect at the GP’s office. Perhaps, she was hack, hack, hacking because she was wearing these. Wearing those shoes would make me hack something up too.