Jenniferbug

@CherryMalotte, are you a fellow Iowan or in another affected area? Just curious, but understand if you'd rather not say 😊

We got power back later last night, after 7 days without. The girls and I stayed at my parents when they got power back because it was too hot (our house got to 82 degrees at one point). We came home today and now have internet too! We're still waiting on an insurance adjuster to come out and examine the damage, but at least we can live in our house!

Thanks for the warning! The Bontragers actually aren't too far from me (maybe 90 minute drive). I'm sad I missed watching the wedding today! Packing the wedding is a terrific idea. Just like the bar crawl that happened last night because the state fair was cancelled. Lots of idiots crawling out of the woodwork in Iowa lately...

I don't know that Iowa has ever had one before! Definitely not in my lifetime, and my mother said she had never heard of such a thing either. I feel so sorry for people who have to deal with these regularly! Thank you! I think the lack of control is most frustrating. Energy company won't even provide estimates of when we might have power again so we just have to wait. And then there's no guarantee we'll have internet when power does come back. Meanwhile, work is giving me the choice between using all my vacation time or going unpaid...even though the storm path took out most of the employees in the state. I think progress is being made in getting power restored to some areas, but others will be waiting for quite a bit longer still.

Day 5 with no power. The storm that hit Iowa is called a derecho and had wind speeds the same as a category 2 hurricane, and has had next to no media coverage. Family members from out of state who we sent pictures to keep saying they had no idea it was this bad because it's not being shown or talked about, which is so weird since this is not normal Iowa weather! I know Iowa is a middle of nowhere state, but geez. People are hurting and there is no help coming. We're supposed to get more winds and hail tonight, with the possibility of tornadoes. They're not predicting it be as bad as Monday's storm but they weren't predicting Monday being bad either. I'm a little worried about the debris still on the ground around the state being blown around and causing more damage. Our school board voted to push the start of school back by 2 weeks because of damage to the schools. I'm so ready for this year to be over.

So the bad news- still no power. Still no estimate for when we may have power. But the good news- the car repair place called yesterday and said since they don't have power, we could pick up my husband's car, which then gave us a vehicle to leave and to charge electronics in (mine is trapped in our garage, we can't get the release on the electric door to open and it's almost out of gas anyway). My husband's fall sports team was rounded up by one of the moms and driven to our house to help with the clean up. It took about 5 hours, but they were able to help us chop and pile everything by the curb. They had been at another house before ours and headed to another after, and I think they're out again today so those boys are amazing. We were able to drive to a nearby town that wasn't hit as hard to get dinner and top off the gas tank. We'll probably do the same tonight. We're surviving. We're so lucky compared to others who had much worse damage to their homes. Thanks everyone for the well wishes! ❤

It has been a day. Around 10:45 this morning my phone alerted me that we were in a severe thunderstorm warning, then I saw some messages from friends who live further west saying they were in basements with power off and very frightened due to the wind. Husband was out for a run (he had dropped his car off for repairs and had decided to run the few miles home), so I called him, buckled the kids into the car, and picked him up quick since it wasn't doing anything at the moment. Not even 10 minutes after we got home, the sky was black, winds were crazy, and sirens were blowing to get to the basement. We could hear thump after thump of branches falling. We were in the basement for around 90 minutes total, thankfully my kids had their Kindles Kindles enough to play games. Thankfully we are safe. Our house is more or less fine. Our yard is a disaster. Huge chunks of our wooden privacy fence are gone. A healthy tree completely split in half, crushed my kids swingset (new to us this summer), took out our fire pit and grill, and barely missed the house (damaged the gutters and hit hard enough to knock pictures off the wall inside). Branches everywhere in the back and front yard. We have a few massive branches down in the side yard and one on the roof of our garage. I'm not even sure what we will do to clean them up. Power is out for most of the state. Phone lines are down in my small town so we can't get hold of insurance so aren't sure what to move and what not to. We're taking multiple pictures of everything just in case. I don't even want to think about how much money we will have to spend (insurance will kick in, but doubt they will cover the full cost of replacing everything that needs repaired). There goes what savings we have 😪 And I will probably have to use vacation time for today until we get power and internet back (estimates right now say Wednesday), because even though the majority of my company is affected, they won't care that we can't work. And we have freezers full of food in the basement just waiting to spoil. So. Today sucked. 2020 sucks- even the weather is out to get us. I just needed to vent for a minute, and now I have to preserve phone battery for as long as possible.

Cleveland apparently sent home pitcher Clevenger as well. He was out with Plesac, didn't speak up, and flew home with the team before they found out 🤦‍♀️ I'm finding this news on Bleacher Nation, which is a Cubs fan page on Facebook. They're covering it because the Cubs are supposed to play Cleveland tomorrow.

Has anyone else seen this news? Indians pitcher Zach Plesac sent home to quarantine after going out with friends. Good for Cleveland for taking quick action, but so frustrating how one person can potentially screw over 2 teams. Edit: tried to include the link which showed fine in my posting window but then showed something completely different once I posted to the thread. Sorry!

@Oldernowiser, I'm so sorry for your loss.

Happy birthday @Westiepeach!

They definitely had names before Five disappeared. The bank robbery scene is before Five disappears and Ben is referred to by name. I believe some of the in universe magazine covers featuring the Umbrella Academy refer to them by name (except Five, even though he's present). I think it's Diego who says that their dad couldn't even be bothered to name them, and their mom did. Maybe she hadn't come up with the perfect name for Five yet? It really doesn't make sense that he doesn't have a name because he was clearly still around when the others were going by their names.

Cubs and Cardinals games cancelled due to more Cardinals testing positive.

I start crying pretty much as soon as the opening notes to "It's Quiet Uptown" play. Doesn't matter that I've heard it countless times, I'm a mess every time.

The Goodreads summary is intriguing. Would you recommend it?

Happy belated birthday @Zella!

I saw this thread title earlier and honestly thought "wait, what? They're having another girl? Already?" And then I remembered that the show is so far behind 🤦‍♀️

Happy birthday @Suzn!

Happy birthday @Ohiopirate02!

@CouchTater, such cute kitties!! @zoomama, I'll be keeping you in my thoughts and hoping for good news. It is so stressful to wait for medical results.

Kris Bryant is out for self reported covid symptoms. He's tested negative so far 😪 It figures that the one guy on the Cubs that I've seen trying to mask as much as possible is the one to maybe be sick. Then again, if he's taking it seriously enough to mask as much as possible, he may be more inclined to report any symptom he experiences. So I'm going to hope that he's just being cautious and isn't actually sick. And hopefully his caution will be a good example for the rest of the team to do the same.

I used to be ok with pitchers hitting, because I figured if you're a major league player you should be able to bat decently, but now I'm like "Is anyone really excited to see Jon Lester bat? I'd much rather see Caratini or Contreras or Schwarber get the chance" so I'm a convert LOL

I was so relieved to see Yu pitch so well tonight! And Ryan wasn't terrible either! Kimbrel has got to go. My husband and I said last night that the Astros are probably feeling less pressure this season than they would have otherwise. On another note, I'm loving having a DH slot this year! Is that sticking around permanently or was it part of their shortened season changes?

I love my Cubbies, but it's been disappointing to see how little masking there is, almost no social distancing (the starting pitchers not pitching that night sit in the stands, everyone else crams into the dugout as usual), and they're still high fiving all the damn time. Kris Bryant seemed to be trying to mask as much as possible, but the last couple of games it appears he's given up. They're playing the Pirates tonight, and Josh Bell at 1st has been pulling up a mask anytime he's near another player, even for mound visits. I don't understand, with everything going on league wide, why they're not all doing this.

Me too, exactly. We're one week into the season and so much has happened already to make continuing seem unwise.