Ike Update #1

It is still calm here in Houston. We've seen on the Weather Channel online, and heard from friends who are still in Galveston (dummies), that the surge has come in so far that the waves are slapping over onto the Seawall. Seawall is the main street that lines the beach in Galveston and is about 15 feet above sea level. The west end of the island, and the Strand (historical district) is already flooded. Where we are, in southwest Houston, there is barely any wind yet. There is an occasional gust, but that's about it. Jacen assured us that this area is fairly high, so flooding shouldn't be a problem. It looks like a lot of people in the neighborhood are riding the storm out with us.

The landlord of the house we are staying in is supposed to be putting up more plywood today, but I'm hoping he leaves a little window exposed so we can see what's going on out there. Our friend Jacen, and renter of this house, has left for his weekend trip and won't be back until Sunday. He was gracious enough to leave us free reign of his home. We couldn't be more thankful.

The only hurricane damage we've seen so far is a broken full bottle of Jager. It cracked in half in the cooler during the "evacuation". Travis realized it was broken when every beer he pulled out of the cooler last night smelled like black licorice. Yuck. I'm not a big fan of the stuff, so I'm okay with it. JR said that the liquor store near here was more busy than the gas stations. Ha!

I slept VERY well last night. Jacen is letting us use his bed, which is so great. He has one of those memory foam pillows that I am taking full advantage of with my sore neck. I was supposed to have a chiropractor appointment this evening. I probably don't even need to call to cancel that. Ha. The only trouble I had sleeping was this morning when Jacen got up to leave for his flight at 5am. Callaway thought it would be necessary to bark everytime he made a sound. Eventually Travis dragged his ass outside, where he stayed until we got up this morning. Damn dog.

Yesterday before he left, Jacen showed us how to use his espresso machine. We have our very own in-house Starbucks! It was a little tricky, but we figured it out this morning. The only downfall was we couldn't find any sugar! We opened a can of sweetened condensed milk which will have to be enough for now. We are going to the store after I take a shower to buy a replacement can and also some sugar, since we'll be here for a few days. I hope it's still open.

Not sure what we'll do today. I'm hoping to get out of the house a little, maybe go visit JR and Sara, since we will most likely not be able to do that tomorrow. =( We brought a bunch of DVDs, but I don't want to watch them all before the storm hits. Jacen doesn't have cable, so we've been keeping up with the storm via the Internet. We're kicking ourselves for forgetting our radio. I'll keep you posted...