IKE DOES seem to have a sense of humor, only most of the jokes ARE on us. When we woke up, it was pretty quiet, but it started sounding more like we were at a campsite rather than living in our neighborhood. I could hear the hum of portable generators going.

We were lucky enough to have shades on our bedroom windows. I also found out that we were lucky enough for no windows to be destroyed, or even cracked, from debrit hitting them all night long. What I thought might have been one of our backyard pine trees falling onto the roof or our bedroom were a bunch of palm fronds - - compliments of our caddy corner back yard neighbors.

They don't ever bother to trim back their 2 "stinking" palm trees. I've even called the neighborhood association to complain about it. We would get palm fronds, here and there, in our back yard. They'd always fall right by our little girls' play area. It would block our girls from getting into their sandbox. I know, I sound like I might be whining, but we also found out that the palm fronds were INDEED the source of our wasp problem that we would get every year, around October or November. They'd come flying into our house and try to take over residence. I wasn't too thrilled about that, as I had gotten stung by one ornary one that happened to decide he liked taking up residence in our sheets. He stung me right in between 2 of my toes one night. The audacity of the little bugger! Needless to say, that was the LAST time he stung me or anyone else. I took out revenge that he COULD NOT pay back.

To get back on track, my husband went outside and started taking care of business. It probably took him a good hour or two to put all of the palm fronds into a huge pile that took up most of the middle of our back yard. He found the evidence of the wasp nests on several of the fronds. Thank goodness, not only did IKE do a little pruning of their palm trees, but he also killed off the wasps (if they weren't already dead to begin with). That didn't keep my husband from getting cuts and scrapes, thanks to the thorny sides of the darker parts of the palm fronds.

The aftermath of IKE was not a pretty sight, not even this far inland from Galveston - - which is about 2 hours Northwest. We were lucky enough not to loose any trees (though we wouldn't have minded losing all of our pine trees that drop all of those needles, that have to be cleaned up from our flower beds so that the soil doesn't get too acidic for our plants). We were also lucky enough not to have any of our trees leaning on, or going into any of our house. Our fence even stayed in tact. We couldn't say the same even for our neighbors who were right behind us. Their fence was down on the side that they shared with the palm frond owners. We There was a fence down at our neighbors across the street as well. A couple of hours later, we took our truck around a block or two. The neighbors behind us also had a tree leaning on the front part of their house. A neighbor across the street from us got damage to his daughter's car, when part of one of his trees snapped off and smashed its roof. It was like that in most of or neighborhood. Though, the only flooding any of us got in our neighborhood (that I'm aware of) was due to roof damage. Many lost shingles, but it was probably because the shingles were old to begin with.

Didn't I say, earlier, that IKE means "laughter"? As I also said before, most of the jokes are on us. Our refrigerator and freezer actually did a great job of keeping our meat and dairy products cold, considering we were out of power for two days. That second day after IKE made landfall, my husband was getting a little concerned about the contents in the fridge and freezer, though. I also joined him in that concern after pouring milk in our cereal bowls that morning. The milk was still cold, but it was starting to feel more luke warm than the way it SHOULD have felt. So, not too long after that, I headed for Randall's. We'd heard, on our radio, that Randall's and Walgreens were open, and selling ice. They were still open, but I don't know how long it had REALLY been since they started spreading the news that they had ice for sale. When I got to Randall's I was used to the idea of just going up to a freezer and pulling out bags of ice. Instead, I found a line that snaked around to an ice machine, and it was spitting out ice at the rate of 2 to 3 bags every 30 minutes. I found out, later, that I was lucky enough to get there before they started locking people out of the STORE. They were controlling how many people could actually get into the STORE, whether they were buying ice or charcoal, or more candles...I stood in line from about 9:30 until about 4 pm. Everyone in the line was pretty much very polite. There was one lady who took advantage of Randall's power being on, and she plugged in her cell phone to recharge it. A few others followed suit. I wished I had thought of that. I also wished I knew about the ice machine pretty much being empty. If I had known, I would have brought a couple of our parishables and let them sit in there while I was waiting for my ice. I and my fellow waiters swapped stories about our lives and made the best of waiting for something that we usually took for granted. When I got back to the car I noticed that it was almost 4:30 pm. I got back home, and within 30 minutes the power was back on. IKE DOES have a sense of humor, doesn't he?

We still needed the ice, though. The fridge and freezer, obviously, were working again, but it was taking a while for them to get cool enough for the food to go back in there. The joke is on IKE, with this one, as we lost none of our food. I think part of that was due to planning ahead on what to eat first. We ate fish the first night our power was out, and I think we had hamburgers the next night. We started cooking things that were thawing out quicker than others, and we kept a close eye on the kids - - making sure they weren't opening and closing the fridge.

Once we got our power back on we were able to see what happened to Galveston, and most of the closer counties. Needless to say, more of IKE's jokes were on them. I probably don't have to show you pictures, as you've probably seen them in the newspapers or on t.v. - - especially if you're addicted to the likes of ESPN. I do know that many homes were decimated in the surge that began the landfall of IKE. Many of those homes had no business being built where they were - - in front of the sea fall, and in front of sand dunes. That is a whole other territory that I might get into in the future. I'm not too happy about paying for their insurance in our home owner's insurance, when we live 2 hours Northwest of all of this. Will they be allowed to rebuild? A Texas State law says that they are not allowed to rebuild if they are that close to the ocean. However, it probably won't be until after January, or even later, before we find out about who will be allowed to rebuild...