During Sandy

Eric informed me before he went to his show that it would just be a few drops of rain.  He informed me that if he was wrong, I had full permission to hold it over his head and say...I told you so.   Preparing the apartment, getting water, flashlights, filling the bathtub, getting can foods, I hoped I wouldn't have to take him up on his oh so generous offer.  I was closely monitoring this storm, as I had so many before.  Growing up in Florida, I am no stranger to hurricanes. I knew that this was going to be bad.  Being so close to the water there was going to be no avoiding the battering of a storm so big and slow.  The only question was...how bad will it be for us?  The subways closed down, all of downtown Manhattan lost power, and they began announcing no school or service the following day/days in NYC.  As the night went on, the winds picked up and shook our windows on the 12th floor.  I huge hawk, about 3 ft tall was blown into our window and took refuge on our fire escape.  I opened the curtain to see what the commotion was and there was my friend, the hawk, looking at me as if to say, help me, lady.  He was remarkably huge. We even got to see him spread his wings in an attempt to air them out.  His time in our refuge was short and he was soon blown away.  We had some flickering of the lights, but the power stayed on.  Sophie was unable to go to bed as the heart of the storm was between 6 and midnight.  The wind and rain beat on the windows in the bedroom, so we made a Rain Party and let her stay up late.  Our party had popcorn and milk accompanied by Rapunzel and Tinkerbell movies.  At midnight, as the worst of Sandy moved out, Sophie crashed into bed and slept late into the morning. We are waking to see how everyone else survived the storm, as we did.