8. Food During An Emergency or Cafe Express Is Closed EVERYBODY PANIC!

Pre-Hurricane, I had moved into a new house. Moving is beyond expensive, so I was broke. Don't ever move.

Second, I had been a vegetarian--it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I had also just started a new job. Commission based! So, so,so broke.

Of course, here comes a hurricane.





I had a lot of non-perishable foods on hand. Asian and Mediterranean foods are very cheap non-meat-based diets so I had bags of rice, beans, pasta and good variety of canned goods.

After Ike hit I realized how valuable a bag of spaghetti and a can of sauce truly is. Friends of mine fled to Dallas after day 1 realizing that Miyako's was not going to be able to put food in their bellies immediately. Also, after de-evacuating from my house, my mother made her way back to Mont Bellvieu where trees had annihilated every power line . Hope of electricity being restored before 3 weeks time was nil. Her pantry had a pine tree living in it and no power meant no well, so she waited in FEMA lines every day for 14 days for food and water.

That made me realize how important having a fully stocked pantry is. I know that "food in house=food in your belly" sounds like a really condescending thing but, take a quick inventory. Food storage is the least of our immediate worries living in a major metropolitan area where restaurants abound. Think about the grocery store, the restaurants, the convenience stores being shuttered. "Welp. Let's go to Dallas!" is not always an alternative. Evac routes maybe clogged. What if there's no gas? And in severe cases, why leave your home if looters are around?


You can easily create an emergency food storage kit for less than $100.

-dry goods: instant rice, tuna helper, spaghetti, instant oatmeal, cereals
-canned food: soup, ravioli, sauce, chili, meats
-snacky foods: crackers, poptarts, trail mix
-coffee/drink mixes


You can purchase all of these things at the grocery store and then store them in "food grade" buckets (found at Home Depot, Lowes, Etc.) in a closet for that very rainiest of days all for less than your bar tab on any Tuesday night. Okay, maybe for less than my bar tab on any Tuesday night, but still, way cheap in the grand scheme of things.

"How do I heat this shit up? I like my food hot, jerk!" -- you might be thinking right now. If you are, I will counter-point with "Why don't you own a grill?". If you live in Texas grill-ownership is mandatory. If you are a resident of Texas and don't own a grill you're on some government list already anyway, and there's nothing I can do to help you at this point. Moving forward, GRILL OWNERS, all you need to sufficiently heat up a meal is some charcoal and some lighter fluid and a match and a stainless steel/cast iron pot or pan. Done and done.



Fire. On loan from cavemen. Get it while you can!

You might be thinking that this is a steaming bowl of crazytalk right now but let's consider some alternatives:

Waiting in FEMA lines with hot, sweaty, hungry, angry people/waiting in traffic with hot, sweaty, hungry, angry people VS. lounging about while eating a Power Bar and a bowl of Spaghettios and leafing through a back issue of ELLE on your couch.

Who's crazy now? Well, me. But if you agree, even a little bit, you! Welcome to the club! BWAHAHAHAAHAHAHHAAAA! .....Where's my pills???

9. The Princess of Darkness

Life after a Cat 3 kept me feeling foolish as hell. Walking through the house I went to flip a light switch, which resulted in my going "HURRRRRDURRRRRRRR" internally. It was quite shameful.

The electricity was out for an 8 day span. No lights, no fridge, no hot water. (Thanks electric water heater. You suck at life.).

Four things to have during this nonsense:


1. hand held can opener
Have you ever stabbed a can of Dinty Moore Stew open with a buck knife? It sucks. Not only are you introducing shards of metal into your dinner, you're getting beef fat spewed all over your coveted Martika concert shirt. Congratulations. You have food but now you smell like a bag of dirty feet on fire and you are no longer welcome at the "Toy Soldiers" fan meetup at the Planet Hollywood in Myrtle Beach next week.

2. cell phone charger with car adapter
Once your phone is drained and you have no power source to recharge it, you've got yourself a fancy paperweight or something to throw at stray children that happen to make their way into your yard (see: chapter 17 "The Joys of an Electric Fence"). Keeping in contact with your people during a natural disaster is paramount. Having a phone charger that works in your vehicle is essential when your home has no electricity. FYI Texting is the best way of communicating with friends and family after a natural disaster and requires less juice than talking. Also, iPhones have a "brightness" setting. Setting your phone to a lower brightness will also conserve it's energy.

3. candles
Well, duh, you say. But how many candles do you have in your house? Do you know the amount of hours they'll last? Usually you can get 10 emergency candles at the Dollar Store for ONE WHOLE DOLLAR. SHAZZAM! Now you can see shit after the sun sets without electricity. Don't thank me or anything.

4. heated water
If you have an electric water heater and the water is still running you are kind of in luck. You will be able to take a shower but it will feel like someone is whipping iced-over gravel at your face. yay....???

One way to circumvent this trauma is to place 4 or 5 12 oz. water bottles out in the sun. About 30 minutes later they'll be warmed up and you can bathe with minimal cursing. If you're wanting a full-shower experience, I invested in this http://store.sundancesolar.com/sosh5ga.html after the hurricane and I recommend it for anyone living in the gulf coast area. It's the Cadillac of self-heating shower bags and less than 9 bucks.

The 10 Steps to Urban Emergency Survival

So, as we've established, I live in a city. I've been through a hurricane. I have terrible taste in movies.

Two of these things might be helpful to you. The other thing can end up with us sharing a pitcher at the local ice house discussing the merits of the latest SciFi Original Horror movie.

I now wish to lay down the knowledge I have gained from the 1st two things.

There are 10 things I learned from living through a natural disaster in an urban setting. The first thing was:

10). Keep an Empty Laundry Basket

Despite my many attempts, I am not a big player in the rap game but if I were to do a remix with Biggie Smalls it would be titled "Mo' Laundry, Mo' Problems". I think B-I-G P-O-P-P-A would be down with this because in the aftermath of a natural disaster there is nothing more irksome than having to wear stank clothing while trying to manage your stable of hoes.

The day before Ike hit I was a whirling laundry dervish. This had little to do with preparedness and more to do with the fact that my mother was en route to ride out the storm at my house and after her Hurricane Rita stay I was NOT going to get the side eye when she had to use a towel that didn't have Snuggles the Fabric Softener Bear getting a boner over it. Never again...

So when Hurricane Ike came I had every piece of clothing, every mismatched sock, every dishrag Downy Certified fresh. Little did I know, that one thing would SAVE MY LIFE.

OK not exactly. But clean clothes did play a giant part in me not getting all stabby.

Post Ike the weather was what you would find if you were on a vacation getaway planned by your new found travel agent, Dante. In other words: Suckville, Population: you. Just sitting on the couch warranted a shirt change every three hours. There was no lounge time though. Branches needed clearing. 1st floors of houses needed mucking out. Sweat mixed with pulverized leaves and a dash of sewer backup was the hot new smell of the season. The gold at the end of the shitty rainbow was a fresh change of underpants and some clean socks.

Existence was sticky and lame. Wardrobe changes happened like we were headlining a Vegas act. We had a seemingly terminal case of the grossness throughout the day but to be able to shed the clothes we were wearing, clean off, and get into something that didn't smell like hateful bug sex was amazing. It kept me from getting the crazies and, therefore, was a good thing.

So, from then on, I keep the laundry laundered. Don't dismiss the power of a clean tube top.

Losin' it.

Hey tubby, put down that McNuggetini for 3 seconds so I can gloat at you. See, I can totally call you tubby now and act extremely judgemental in regards to your personal food choices, as I have lost 3 inches off my waist and 2.5 inches off my hips in the last 30 days. I have also gained 1 inch on my left leg and left bicep. WTF? Trainer Leo says that's me "evening out"--I say it's me mutating into a weird big-left-legged mutant. So I suppose I should refrain from calling you names as me and my freakishly mammoth left appendages currently reside in a glass house.

I'm a "put on a show" kinda girl...

I have some news. My garden is growing like a pedophile at a church lock-in!

In addition to that, I built a cabinet (from IKEA)

with my own little hands on election day.

Also, I've been tricked. Hard. I watched the movie "Zombie Town" back in December. I ordered it from Netflix. It was terrible--and coming from me, that means something. Here is a snippet of an interpretation of that film before my brain shut down and started thinking about unicorns and bacon:

Joe: "Gary is dead and also a zombie."

Alice: "What do you mean that Gary is dead and also a zombie?"

Joe: "Gary died and then came back to life and then tried to eat me."

Alice: "What do you mean that Gary died and then came back to life and then tried to eat you?"

Joe: "Gary died and came back to life and tried to eat me and then I shot him in the face and then he was for real dead this time and did not try to get back up and eat me because he is now dead from me shooting him in the face..."

Alice: "What do you mean..."

AND SO FORTH

And this went on for like an hour and 20 minutes. I turned off the sound about 15 minutes in and just watched for the zombie carnage while I wasn't folding laundry.

Well, apparently "Zombie Town" pulled a fast one on me. I blindly put zombie movies in my Netflix que because there is something terribly wrong with me. Between December and now, the lovely people who produced "Zombie Town" changed the cover on their damn film. It went from this:
To this:



So OF COURSE I accidentally ordered it again.












Damn my eyes...