Got the time?

Time...hmmm. Let me ponder that one. Time is that thing that crawls by interminably regardless of where you are in IF. It is also that thing that hurtles by as you grow older every day. Depending on your 'method of choice,' you can be waiting for CD1, waiting to start your meds, waiting for a surge on your OPK, waiting to trigger, waiting for your IUI/retrieval/transfer/home study, waiting for just the right time to do it the old-fashioned way (haha, that was a good one; silly me), waiting for test results, waiting for two weeks...and so many other forms of waiting, all of it linked by the wait for good news at every point. Yep, I agree Marla, time really does suck sometimes.

Speaking of waiting, I am waiting for good news of another type myself. Since I am currently on a D&C-inspired 'wait' (with an impatient wait for AF on top of that), I am waiting for good news in the form of "when the hell will we get our electricity back?" Florida Power & Light (FPL) estimates it could be up to 3 weeks. Aghhh!

Jeanne did, in fact, whollop the shit out of our neck of the woods. At my house, we lost the majority of our remaining roof shingles, down to the plywood here and there, and have two good-sized leaks--one in a guest bedroom, the other in the famliy room. The storm was definitely stronger than Frances by us. Yesterday, hubby, BIL and I spent a few hours on the roof tarping it. I'd say more than half our roof is tarped. And just think, almost two weeks ago, I spent 4 hot south Floridian September summer hours in the yard picking up all the shingles that Frances chucked. Shit, I should have just left them all there and got them done in this round. That's a chunk of time in my life that I'll never get back (kind of how I felt after I saw the movie 'Interolerable Cruelty'--and my apologies to those of you who actually enjoyed that film).

I won't complain too much though. Many others suffered much worse. But do you know just how effin' miserable south Florida is in Sept.? The heat, the humidity...and now the standing water--which equals mosquitos, lots and lots of the hungry bastards (whose fertility, may I add, is awe inspiring--I mean, we're talking about millions of eggs they can lay in the moat that now surrounds our home).

But, alas, Menita, relocation is not an option for us *sigh.* We relocated back here in February because this is homebase; both hubby and I were raised in these parts. This hurricane crap was a lot easier though when we were kids and our parents were the ones who had to deal with this. We simply got to play in a lot of standing, stagnant, mosquito-infested water after the storms passed (BTW, what the hell were we thinking? That's just nasty).

Our insurance adjustor is/was scheduled to come to the house today to assess our damage from Frances. We don't know if he's still coming though because there is no phone service (land or cell) at our house. Can you believe that we may have to pay a second deductible on our insurance if we claim additional damages from Jeanne? I won't even scare you with how much the deductible for one storm is--getting coverage is already costly but, on top of that, there's no flat rate deductible for hurricanes. The hurricane deductible is two percent of your home's value (on some policies it's as high as five percent) and you can get a rough idea of that amount if you've heard anything about the price of housing in the tri-county (Dade, Broward, Palm Beach) area.

On the positive side, we do have an 8,000 watt generator that dear SIL and her husband let us borrow. It is large enough to run most of our house (except the AC) if we want. However, we've only wired up a few essentials--like our bedroom (fan, TV, clock), our bathrooms, and our fridge. That way, we conserve the gasoline needed to run it. Gas is at a premium by us because not many stations have power in order to pump it. We do not yet have running water at the house either because we live on a well and the pump that runs it is a 240 volt. The generator is 120. Hubby bought an adaptor today so we're hoping to have running water later so we can actually bathe--a novel concept in our parts right about now (so I guess it's a good thing that AF did not show up in recent days!).

So, I'm posting this from work which has power and is fully operational, though the AC on my side of the building has taken a dump. It's stuffy, hot, and I'm not inclined to get any work done (hell, who am I kidding? When am I inclined to get any work done in this job? My sole salvation here is that I can 'steal time' to read your blogs on a daily basis!). I just hope our dogs are okay at home today. It's supposed to be a record scorcher today and we turn off the generator while we're gone. It's gets mighty hot without it--and quickly. Opening up the windows is not an option while we're out because A) our dogs are crazy and would jump out through the screens and B) someone would probably try to steal the generator (really, it's quite common after a storm) though, if that happened, C) the unfriendly one of our doggy duo would eat their arms off or, even better, their peckers. This, however, would be a blessing because we all know that STUPID PEOPLE SHOULDN'T BREED (though they either can't or won't realize this).

Thank you all for your concern. We are alive, we are fortunate, but mostly we are hot (this heat is doing wonders for my already uber-oily face), getting fragrantly ripe, and waiting for our power to be restored. But we are optimistic, and we shall pick up the cracked pieces and soldier on--yet again. This seems to be par for the course of our lives these past three-and-a-half years. I don't have the time to look back, only forward...let's hope I see the FPL man there soon.