Most of this past week went by in a blur. I was glad I lived in the Midwest rather than on the east coast. The most exciting thing in our life was some of the neighbors cattle deciding to come stay in our pasture including one young bull who has made himself quite at home. My dogs are less than thrilled and bark long and loud at him. He just placidly munches grass and watches the show. The horses are cool with all four or five of the cattle.
The bull is probably about 14 months old, I'd say, and pretty sweet tempered. Thankfully. My fences aren't set up to hold nasty bulls. They tend to walk right through them. We're not sure which neighbor he belongs to. Best we can tell, he and a few others found our pasture from walking the creek and then climbing up the bank to our property. I reckon someone will come looking for him and the few other strays eventually. Meanwhile, hubs has walked them back down to the creek area, several times, to encourage them to find their way home—with little luck. Apparently, they like it here.
On the work front,
I work a call
center in the appliance division. I enjoy the work and the people I work
with. This past week was quite busy with Sandy slamming into the east coast. So
many of our call center personnel were unable to work due to Sandy so the rest
of us picked up the slack so it was understandably busy. Thousands of
appointments had to be cancelled and rescheduled due to power outages. What
made it harder was the techs are working overtime to get to everyone and so we’re
booking two and three weeks out. Thursday and Friday were dealing with many who
had electricity again but their appliances were even more wrecked than when
they initially called. It tickled me to hear how some of these appliances had
been standing in water and yet still worked. Pretty cool actually.
This week we will be even busier as more and more people get
electricity and need their appliances checked after all the enormous electrical
surges on the power grids. I’m glad I’m not in customer relations right now.
Yikes, they’re incredibly busy and will continue to be so.
I heard so many stories, in the process of setting up or cancelling appointments, of living through such a huge storm. Neighbors pooling resources.
The people with generators setting up kitchens and neighborhoods sharing food
preparations for everyone—can you picture that? There were others providing
shower facilities and setting one generator up just for electronic recharging.
One woman I spoke with said her husband and some of the neighborhood men had
set up outdoor showers in a garage. Who knew so many hoses could be used for
that and shower heads out of cans and plastic coffee containers. They had also
made bonfires and if I understood her correctly, they used the fire to heat
barrels of water—I have no idea where they got the barrels. Isn't it amazing
what people can come up with when they put their minds to solving problems. If
you want to read some heartwarming stories, check out Hurricane Sandy Acts OfKindness page on Facebook.
So, how was life in your neighborhood this past week?
Any amazing stories you'd like to share from the storm area?
