The Joy of Sleep

While I've mentioned insomnia before, I occasionally have the opposite condition. This is handy for some reasons and not so handy on others.

This brief memory is a handy occasion.

September 2008, the Dread Hurricane Ike struck. It made Texas its mare for awhile. We originally didn't plan to evacuate when the storm was downgraded in its predictions to hit as a category 2. We ended up evacuating in the end, up to Houston, to stay with my brother. My sister-in-law's family did the same thing. So, we were sitting cozy, 3 cats, 1 dog, 8 people in a Houston townhouse.


My brother and I theorized as we watched TV and movies and drank gin. I hadn't slept the night before the evac, as I had been eying the storm details up until the last possible minute.

We were anxious. We didn't really know how bad it was going to be and how our house would look afterward, let alone the affected areas of the state.

Then, the storm hit. First the power went. We were staying in the upstairs guest room that faced the other buildings. A branch came through the window with furious anger and broke it. This and the horrible howl of the wind made everyone rush to the room to observe nature in its fury.

Or so I'm told. I was asleep through all of this. I awoke, uncomfortable, to find that the storm that was billed as one of the worst in human history didn't overly affect my immediate surroundings. We took a drive to see what there was left to see in the city of Houston.

It was bad. We heard radio reports of how awful the storm was and how much damage was estimated.

Apparently, I was one of the few to sleep the night the storm hit. For that, I'm thankful.