rita rita bobita

my folks are safe so far. i had a bit of a scare saturday evening-- i'd told mom i'd call when i got home from work saturday night, but my insomnia made itself known friday night & i changed my schedule-- i knew i'd never make it to work, so i got the shift covered. when i woke up saturday evening at 7pm, she wasn't expecting my call, and i knew that, so i tried not to be paranoid when no one answered. miraculously, i'd gotten the answering machine, so i knew they still had power. (the guys whose cows my folks are currently boarding explained that they're on the good side of the grid by less than a mile.) later, i tried the cell phone, which i know doesn't get a signal at their house, but by then i was convinced they'd had to evacuate to a shelter, or worse, were at/en route to a hospital. alas, the cell went straight to voice mail. 4 hours later, after playing a hundred games of solitaire and watching an entire lifetime movie (???) to avoid cnn reports, i finally heard back. my parents are notoriously anti-technology (they got their first CD player 2 years ago solely because they couldn't find cassette tapes of their favorite music for sale anywhere), and it seems they just hadn't noticed the answering machine blinking. (dad carries the cell phone on his late-night, dark-country-road drive to work, just in case he hits a deer or whatnot-- he noticed my message when he finally turned the thing on.) it's raining like mad there, and likely will be for the next couple of days, but they aren't experiencing the flooding they expected. the power flickered constantly, enough that they unplugged their ridiculously large TV and the AC units, but so far hasn't gone out. the wind, though... some sort of drain blew off the house and took a piece of wall with it, which left a hole dangerously near the electrical box, so when i called they were out dealing with that. for a moment after she walked outside, mom thought the wind had blown chunks out of the siding, but upon closer inspection, it turns out that the wind had been so intense that it had plastered pieces of leaves and debris to the house with so much force that even the constant rain hadn't washed them off. other than that, all seems well for now. rita has thankfully not quite lived up to her billing, but she has still stalled somewhat over what is ridiculously called "ArkLaTex," which just barely includes my parent's home. here's hoping she gets her rainy ass out of town promptly and withers to mere mist. thank you all for your thoughts and prayers!