We’re safe.
Yesterday after work I drove through panicky traffic, full of preoccupied people, to pick up my kids from school. I dropped them off at home, changed into my tennis shoes, then went to the grocery store. Luckily, the one nearest me had water. Not much of a choice of non-perishable foods, though. I got what I could, flipped through Allure while waiting behind four or five carts, and then got out.
Even though the nearest gas station had a line about eight cars long, I knew it would probably get worse the longer I waited, so I called the kids to make sure they were okay, then waited twenty minutes to get gas. A couple of guys had an argument at the pump, and one guy kept trying to skip in line, but mostly everybody was polite and decent. I had to fill up with Plus. Hope my car doesn’t get sad when it has to go back to regular.
At home we were glued to the news for a while, and then we watched America’s Next Top Model and it pleasantly numbed me for a while. Then, after that, the stress of the day sunk in and I felt very, very tired. I decided we would pack in the morning. I fell asleep before ten. My boyfriend showed up and I told him all my worries before conking back out.
We woke up at 7:40 this morning and saw on the news that the traffic was in complete gridlock on every single outbound freeway. Although our destination – my boyfriend’s sister’s house – wasn’t far, we decided to leave as soon as possible instead of waiting until the evening as we’d previously planned. We packed quickly, taking the computer, an external hard drive, the PS2 and its games, the Gameboys, all photo albums and photo boxes, an air mattress, five days’ worth of clothing and toiletries, a cooler full of lunch meat and cheese, and all the water/drinks/non-perishables we had. And contact lenses. And medicine. And pillows and blankets. And, sadly, a little Ziplock bag of my most-cherished jewelry. And a few books, and my son’s sketchbook, and my journal.
At first I’d wanted to take the TVs, VCR, DVD player, the kids’ old computer, and a crappy half computer that I’ve been meaning to fix with the purchase of a new motherboard. My boyfriend was very patient as I came to terms with the realization that we needed to leave those things. We tried to remove things from flood’s way and window dangers. I tried not to dwell on thoughts of our apartment being destroyed.
A lot of my neighbors decided to stay. We talked to one – the Volunteer Firefighter Guy – and wished him well. He lives on the second floor. He said he was only worried about his Jeep.
We packed our two cars, got on the road and left, promising ourselves to stop at the first fast-food restaurant we found open. Our plan was to take the long backroads. What was normally a 15-30 minute trip would take us an hour, most likely. Right before we left, the weatherman showed footage of the gridlocked freeways again and then suggested that everyone take our alternate route – Westheimer – to get out of town. Doh.
We stayed on Westheimer as long as we could, passing the Wendy’s with the twenty-car line and stopping at a Taco Cabana where the only people working the window were people who obviously had never worked the window before. Soon, Westheimer became near-gridlock so we switched over to Briar Forest, and then got to Highway 6, which was gridlocked after a while, until people took it upon themselves to drive down the wrong side of the street. Even with that going on, though, I have to say that most people were courteous. That’s why I usually love Texas.
What should have been a 15-30 minute drive took four hours. We were glad when we finally made it here. My boyfriend’s sister and brother-in-law are awesome people, and they have an awesome house. I’m so grateful that they took us in, and they made us feel like they’re glad we’re here.
We’re far, far from the evacuation zones. Actually, I don’t even live in the evacuation zone, but I do live near a bayou so I wanted to leave in case of floods. We’ve been chilling, playing pool, eating spaghetti… everything’s fine. Thanks to all of you guys for your concern and good wishes. We’re good.
Everyone on the freeways, however, is completely out of luck now. The freeways are now parking lots. Most of the people on them ran out of gas a long, long time ago. The Randalls grocery store near where we’re staying stopped letting people in at around 4 PM, because most of their employees didn’t show up for work today. Even the people with gas still in their tanks have nowhere to go now, so they’re just parking anywhere they can. There are tons of people – mostly poor people – stranded in the Randalls parking lot. My bf’s brother-in-law went to give them sodas and juice earlier today. He was going to give them coolers but no one had any ice. He went to see what was going on at Randalls at hour ago – at 7:30 PM – and he says it’s complete chaos. People are defecating in the grass where they took their dogs to defecate earlier today. I’m scared for them. Local people are advising them to take refuge in the half-built houses of a nearby new subdivision. I hope they’ll be okay. A lot of the people stranded on the freeways turned around and went back home. Here’s hoping Hurricane Rita dissipates to nothing before it can get to them.
My ex-husband has called several times to find out where we’re staying. A couple of hours ago, he called to say that he looked up the address on the map and has decided that we’re not far enough away. He says he wants me to take them farther away. I tried to reason with him and explain that we can’t go anywhere, and that we’re safe here, anyway, so it’s okay. He won’t believe me. I told him to turn on the news. He said that he did, and the news shows that all the freeways are open and that I could go farther if I could but I just don’t want to. He said all the same stuff he always likes to say – that I’m irresponsible and I don’t care about our kids. He said he’s coming to get the kids, himself. I said okay, call me when you get here, then, and don’t call me anymore until you get here. He says, “I’m going over there tomorrow.” I said fine, call me when you get here.
He said, “Can you meet me halfway?” I said no. He said I’m a bad (curseword, curseword) mother who doesn’t (curseword, curseword) care about our kids. I finally did what I should have done at the beginning and hung up on him. I felt bad that our hosts had to hear me yelling at the kids’ dad on the phone. I’m just not going to answer his calls anymore. I can’t deal with it. It’s not conducive to the state of mind I need to maintain in order to get through whatever comes.
We’re safe, thank God. Most of my friends are, too. Some of my family stayed home to weather the weather. Please, please let them end up okay. I’m pretty sure they will be okay…
Just in case:
God, please watch over everyone here, okay?
