Of Hurricanes, Hunger Games, and History

Early this week, as you likely know, Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene breezed through the Northeast; here in Connecticut the damage was mostly to trees, but they in turn managed to knock out the electricity in over 770,000 homes. I was lucky on several accounts: 1) the two, towering pine trees in my front yard did NOT fall and crush my 250(ish)-year-old house; 2) During the storm I was able to take refuge in my parents' 50(ish)-year-old house which has city water and a gas stove; 3) our own electricity was restored yesterday morning (most of my neighbors are still without power); 4) my background in children's reading and writing amply prepared me for this kind of situation.

My copies of The Hunger Games and Little House on the Prairie may have to be re-shelved next to the Boy Scout handbook, under Emergency Preparedness. And all my research for my own historical fiction works suddenly proved useful in real life scenarios; for example, we kept milk cold by submerging bottles filled with it into the stream in front of our house (it stayed ice cold). Though I didn't end up needing to do so, I had my recipes and dutch oven prepared for cooking over the fire, which I can easily start by myself (I do use matches...but I know how to start a fire without them).

So our little mini-disaster ended up being quite worry-free, although I did gripe to myself about having to rely on electricity to pump our well water into the house; its past housewives had the “luxury” of dropping a bucket into the well and cranking up fresh, clean water whenever they wanted it...whereas my husband had to haul water in from the stream so we could flush toilets...how we've progressed, huh?

To proclaim my gratitude for all historical fiction has taught me, I am hereby declaring a historical fiction theme for the next few days/weeks/we'll see how long. Being unable to vacuum and do laundry freed up several hours in my day for the things I really like doing—and many, many pages of my favorite genre were turned since Sunday. So of course I can't help talking about it. Stay tuned. :) (Also to come...pictures of my poor willow tree which lost its head.)

In the meantime, please say a prayer or two for the tens of thousands of people still without power from the storm. No, it's not quite as life-altering as the media would like you to believe, but it can be really really annoying, and it's looking like several more days will pass before everything's up and running again.