st louis « Robin Writes

Well, no one prepping is ever really “finished,” but our food prep is done. For now.

As I was going through the grocery ads today, I realized that there does indeed come a stopping point, and we’ve reached it. For instance, there’s a big ten items for ten dollars sale this week, and there is not a single thing in the ad that I actually need.

Soap, shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant? Check.

Pasta, noodles, mac n cheese? Check.

Canned goods? Check.

Peanut butter? Check.

All the long-term food storage has been covered. Yes, of course we rotate, but with a good six months’ supply laid up, we’re back to buying what we need each week.

Next up, the non-food items:

Generators

Antenna for our base station CB

Fencing material

And of course, the rest of the remodel. Having had a break of a couple weeks, I’m not too anxious to get back to skim-coating!

But I do like to finish a project before starting the next.

I have, however, designed the kitchen. Let’s call it “Round One.”

We were getting ready to go to our first client’s home for the day. The TV was on and our youngest was playing on the bedroom floor. The older kids were at school.

My husband called out, “Hey, what’s going on? Looks like a plane just hit a building in New York!”

I came out of the bathroom just in time to see the second plane hit the World Trade Center.

We stood there, staring, trying to make sense of it. For almost an hour.

We wondered if we should pick up the kids from school; we wondered if we should go to work.

I called our client and asked if we should come—she said sure, why not? I couldn’t tell her.

We managed to gather our supplies and the three-year-old and left the house. By the time we arrived at the client’s house, she was glued to the TV.

Halfway through the job, we left. We couldn’t stay. She barely noticed.

We spent the next week, probably, watching TV and wondering what to do, if anything. We wondered what it all meant. What would happen next. We called friends who flew, making sure they were safe.

My mother was stuck in France. No flights.

Every year on this date, things are tense. Here, I mean. At home. Not just across the USA. It’s an overall feeling of doom, a sense of waiting and watching. And remembering.

Even fourteen years later.