A motorcycle roared by yesterday morning and woke me up. I knew that the flooded road must have drained overnight. Sunshine and blue skies greeted me after I turned the rod to open the blinds.
After breakfast, I went outside and reset the enclosed porch. I returned folding chairs to their normal places. I took potted plants, and a garbage can out of my studio and set them outside. Then I grabbed a rake and a branch cutter.
Debris (downed branches, shredded palm fronds, magnolia seed pods, and an empty but clean mayonnaise jar) littered the lawn and driveway. I filled two garbage cans and one and a half bags over the next 90 minutes. A partially detached ten-foot branch from the neighbor’s Dr. Seuss tree lay across the fire bush next to the east fence. I decided to cut it into sections on the following day as I had to go inside to make lunch.
When I sat down with Judy to eat, I felt unusually tired. The temperature had dropped ten degrees below normal, so I hadn’t suffered heat fatigue from working outside. Three stressful but inactive days spent waiting out the storms must have affected me. Getting back in motion felt like a rude jolt.
I took a walk after lunch. I saw “high tide” lines of debris encroaching farther and farther into the yards as I approached the corner. The road beyond the intersection looked muddy. All that water rushing down the road yesterday must have pooled here.
Tire tracks tore through the yard of the house on the corner. Someone had cut through to avoid the high water. I saw a makeshift patch on the power line at the next corner. I saw shredded trees and lawns covered by small branches and leaves on the way to Aloma. A split branch from a bedraggled evergreen forced me to walk into the road just before I reached Aloma, and when I rounded the corner, I saw an uprooted tree. It had crushed a backyard fence. Its outer branches had missed clipping a power line by a few inches.
I saw muddy water still standing at the curbs as I circled home on Carnation. Sections of fences (formerly facing east) lay on several lawns. Some neighbors had piled stacks of branches near the road. Signposts leaned to the west in gaps where houses had not blocked the wind.
Near home, I saw a group of dogwalkers strolling down a muddy side street. They talked cheerfully as they tended their dogs. Things hadn’t returned to normal but weren’t nearly as bad.
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