Fadedwords

I drove to my parents’ house today. I left early this morning, went directly to my Mom’s work, and surprised her. I’m sneaky. I came home for a lot of reasons… to spend time with family, get my cat, and some other things I want to bring to North Carolina, and plan for the move.

Tonight I went with my Mom to check on my Aunt’s cats. She is out of town… actually she and her friend rented a house on the coast of Maine for a week. So Mom has been checking the mail and the cats fairly diligently. As we were pulling up the driveway I noticed a neat magazine in the pile and mentioned it as I started to flip through. My mother said, “Oh my fucking god.” I thought this was a strange response… the magazine was just a nature one. Mom kept repeating it though, so I looked up. Then I said, “Oh my fucking god.”

A gigantic pine tree had fallen on the deck/house. I got out of the car and went closer. There were power lines all over the place, so I went down the driveway to my Aunt’s neighbor. The last time I spent time down at their house was when I was about 15; I grew up playing with his daughter, Nichole, who is 6 years my junior. I walked through the side yard, as I had done so many times before and walked up to Kevin. He was standing there with his wife, Dianne, a beautiful girl (I assumed to be Nichole… and I was right), and a boy (I’m guessing Nichole’s boyfriend). Dianne said, “Oh my god!? Katie?? The last time I saw you you were this big.” *read: holding hand up ‘this’ high* I laughed a little, looked at Kevin, and said, “There’s a big fucking tree on my Aunt’s deck. Could you come look and make sure the house isn’t going to blow up?” He laughed and followed me back up the driveway.

In the end, there is very minimal damage. The tree only damaged a small part of the deck… a couple rails and the latice work on the side. It tore power lines off the house, but didn’t damage the wires other than removing them abruptly from the siding. The electric company came out, checked the cables, and assured us that there was no danger. All the lines were completely in tact and just need to be reattached to the house. Kevin, my aunt’s neighbor, is going to work on getting the tree out of there (he’s one of those handy macho men).

I’ll take pictures tomorrow morning and add them to this entry. As Mom and I have said probably 60 times tonight: “There’s an effing tree on the deck.”

We haven’t told my Aunt yet… more on her reaction. I thought it’d be good to break the ice with this: “Carol, Kate is pregnant.” After they resuscitate her, the news of the deck will be small beans… especially when she realizes we were just messing with her about the whole me being pregnant thing. It seems like a great plan to me.