Happy 8th Birthday, Cassie

[caption id="attachment_4006" align="aligncenter" width="224"] Cassie prepares Monster High for the next week's classes[/caption]

Better than OK

According to people who know such things, the phrase "We are OK." was the most common phrase in Facebook posts during and shortly after Post-Tropical Cyclone mega-Frankenstorm Sandy. We are and then some.
As we mentioned on Facebook, the storm blew over a 50-foot, 100-year-old spruce tree onto our house, slicing off the chimney top which tumbled down to the roof of our family room. The sound caused my wife, Sandra, to jump up just as pieces of the ceiling came crashing down. It took a few minutes to figure out what has happened, by which time power went out town-wide.

Son Mike, a building contractor, lives a couple miles away and showed up quickly. His quick assessment, with the storm still strong, was we couldn't be sure that the house was safe. Water was coming in around the stub of the chimney and the family roof was sagging. We' couldn't be sure if any electrical wires were damaged.  After an hour of muddled thinking, we decided to spend the night with Mike's family.

There we were greeted and comforted. We listened Miss Cassie read her report on E. B. White's Stuart Little. Her report was a retelling of the story from the perspective of Snowbell, the family cat. Power came back to the town earlier than expected. Mike and Lynn gave up their bed to us. We were up early and returned home at first light.
The day passed quickly. The tree company that Mike called was on the scene with three trucks by 8 and the tree was gone by 10. A mason inspected the chimney. Mike and a framer friend cleared away the old chimney and patched the hole. The insurance inspectors were on the scene by 4. At 6, we were back at Mike and Lynn's for a birthday party for Cassie and me.

Back home, we have heat from the wood stove. (The furnace will be off until the chimney is repaired.) We are moving onto the new normal that, for a time, has a torn ceiling and a silent furnace. The house, for the first time in more than a century, is open to the east.

More importantly, we are energized with the fresh expressions of love and friendship and competence. We settled in long enough to watch the TV news of the fires and flooding in New York and the concomitant need for  heroics and compassion and money.

A while ago, after a rough personal episode, I remarked to one of my doctors that I was eager to get back to normal.

"There is no normal," he said. "There just is."