Once upon a time, Mother Nature had a stroke and decided New Jersey was getting off too easy. Sure, sure, there’s tolls on the highways and you can’t bring beer on the beach, but…no scorpions! So, she threw us a heaping scoop of hurricane with a sprinkling of tornado. Nah, she thought, still not cutting it. I know! Earthquake! That seemed to satisfy her for a while, but when October 29th rolled around, she was restless again.

Mother Nature decided she’d start with a smattering of snow. Odd, I thought, but pretty.

Then…BAM!

FULL-ON SNOW STORM!

By the way, that ‘bam’ was the sound of every tree in New Jersey falling on every power line. As the most densely populated state in the U.S., that’s a lot of power lines. The snow was too heavy and the leaves too plentiful; giant branches bowed and then broke.

We weren’t anticipating a true storm (there’s no storm like it on record [for October] since the Civil War), so when it really started coming down and we lost power at 1 o’clock last Saturday afternoon, we headed out in search of a generator and bottled water (we have a well that doesn’t work when we lose power).

We got the last generator, and it was enough to power the fridge. Not the heat or the water. So we waited in the dark. And waited and waited. We blanched at the news that 95% of New Jersey Central Power and Light’s customers would have power restored by the following Thursday, the remaining 5% on Friday. By Thursday?! That was 6 full days away! We had needs! …Like showering for work.

Guess who was in the 5%? Yup. That’s right. 7 days of flushing the toilet with melted snow and creek water later…

I’M BACK!

Of course, I have to return with a bang, so for your viewing pleasure…

Uncle Jesse in costume!!!

There are many like-minded souls out there, which fills my guilty pleasure heart to the brim. For example, I discovered via Twitter that last Halloween Second Husband bought a squirrel costume from Target for his brother’s dog:

Annnnnd this is why Second Husband is about to get upgraded to Soul Mate status. I mean, a squirrel is almost a chipmunk. Does anyone else see interwoven destiny here? …No? Pssh. See if I try to pawn off my leftover candy corn on you this year.