If it’s unplanned, some people might call it an “actual” emergency but no one died so I’d like to refer to it as a drill.

Monday night we were staying up a little late to watch our new favorite show Castle and I told Dan I could smell something coming in the house from the garage. We went out to investigate and found that the super strong smell was filling the entire garage and we couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Having never been trained as a general contractor or a disaster-sniffing K9, I had no idea what the smell was or where it was coming from.

It could have been a gas leak, a motor failure, burning electronics, or maybe even a can of rancid food that had exploded in our storage shelves. Dan and I sniffed our way around the garage and even aired it out to get a better feel for source. In the end we decided that it was probably a furnace issue, turned off the furnace for the night and Dan headed inside to bed.

Now here’s how I know someone was looking out for me. I suddenly felt an urge to rearrange things in the garage, the garage that I’d let fester for months, the garage in which it was 11 o’clock pm and I had a sleeping baby in the house where I should have been sleeping as well. I just had a feeling I should move some stuff around.

As I walked by the electrical box, I heard a skittering sound. Thinking it was likely a rodent of some sort, I decided to stay away from that part of the garage but a few minutes later I noticed a swollen, bulging, water-soaked cardboard box on the shelf next to it. When I went to investigate, I found that one of our water bottles had a slow leak and had made a bit of a mess on the shelf and I decided I’d rather clean it up sooner than later.

So I spent the next several minutes mopping up the water, long enough to hear that the skittering sound was coming from inside the breaker box which was crackling and popping and giving off a burning smell but no visible smoke.

Looking down around the breaker box I noticed that directly in front of it was our kerosene heater full of fuel, a box of Duraflame logs and our wood supply. It was a perfect stack of kindling and accelerants. Nice. I called Dan out to have a look while I moved the flammables away from the fire hazard.

He went inside to turn off our computers before turning off the electricity to the house and my job was to stay by the box in case it burst into flames. And what was I to do then? Stop them with my laser vision? I had no idea because we couldn’t find our fire extinguisher. We both totally knew where it was. Only problem being – neither of us could actually locate it.

When I talked to my sister about this on the phone the next day, she said she totally knew where hers was. A minute later, she started grumbling, “It’s not there.” It took her several minutes to track it down, by which time her house would have burnt to the ground. So I encourage each of you to go today and find your fire extinguisher and give it a little pat so that you know that you really know where it is. And while you’re at it, check the expiration date.

Anyway, when we got the electricity turned off, I still wasn’t feeling safe enough to go to sleep while my children slept above that box. So we called the fire department to make sure we were okay. They jumped in the rig and stopped by with their giant red truck, their heat-detecting gun and their big huge pants. The box was still hot but not sparking and they told us we’d be fine and to call an electrician in the morning.

I just feel so blessed that we were able to figure things out in time to not be burnt to a crisp in our beds. If we hadn’t stayed up late… if I hadn’t smelled the smell from the garage… if I hadn’t decided to rearrange things when I should have been sleeping… if that bottle hadn’t leaked, drawing my attention to the breaker area, who knows what would have happened to us? I know Heavenly Father is protecting and looking out for my family and that’s a very comforting feeling.

We had one night without power and the next day, Dan was able find an honest and capable electrician who fixed things up to the tune of less than $200. Wild, wild night.

This weekend we wrangled all six bebes into our minivans and headed downtown for the obligatory Guests-In-Town-Must-See-Water visit to Pike Place Market and the pier in Seattle.

Shortly into the drive I noticed my cell phone was missing. Should we go back? Not by the peanut butter smears on their chinny chin chins! There was no way I was turning the wagon train around for something as unimportant as my main communication device.

A minute later I remembered I had forgotten my medicine. Not a chance I was going back for it.

About 10 minutes into the drive, I remembered that I’d forgotten to bring any female accoutrements to keep my visiting “Aunt Flo” in check. Hmmm… I was sure I could pick something up in a public restroom once we got downtown. We soldiered on.

So, it turns out that there is not a single tampon on the entire waterfront boardwalk in Seattle, not a pad, not a remotely sturdy Kleenex. Nada. From one end of the pier to the other I searched public restrooms. There aren’t many. The main women’s room had two stalls, one with a working toilet, one with a door. You could take your pick but neither had a tampon machine.

I went into restaurants that had signs proclaiming “Restrooms for Customers Only” and found that they were equally unequipped.

I asked my friends, their friends, store clerks from Ye Olde Curiosity Shop to Ivars, random women on the street. Nobody had ANYTHING. Well, I got some strange looks from a few people, people who I’m sure did have a tampon in their pocket but were put off by a panhandler with two children, walking like a penguin down the pier and offering to work for feminine hygiene products.

“I bet she’ll just sell them on the black market to buy Dr. Pepper. I bet those aren’t her real kids. She’s probably not even a woman,” I’m sure they were thinking as they clutched their purses and walked on.

Seriously. How much of an emergency must it have been for me to be approaching random strangers? Anyone female and possibly premenopausal was fair game but no one admitted to having anything. By the time we made it to the Aquarium, I was really desperate.

I walked in and asked a greeter to let me into the restrooms. I offered to pay admission if I needed to. The place was packed but she ushered me past the lines. She didn’t know if there was anything available in the restrooms. The restrooms were new. Today was the grand opening of the new facility. Sadly there was nothing. She took me to her supervisor and whispered something in her ear.

“Hmmm… I’m not sure. Maybe in the restroom of the Life on the Edge exhibit.”

What a fitting title. I was definitely on the edge of something.

“I’ll take anything,” I said. “I’ve been going up to random strangers on the street begging. I have no pride left.”

“Wait a second. I may have something here.” She pulled a small green package from her pocket.

AHHHH!!!! And I loved her and we have formed a lasting bond of friendship.

This year on the Fourth of July I plan on hiring a float. It will have dancers performing a Mia Michaels contemporary routine, kazoo players and on a platform in the center will be me — shooting feminine hygiene products like a hail storm from a rocket propelled launcher of some kind. “Accoutrements” will cover the ground in a way never before seen by the citizens of Seattle and they will weep, some with joy and some with embarrassment.

And I will be avenged.

Or maybe I’ll just start carrying extras in my glove box.

By now you probably know that much of Washington has been swallowed up in the great waters of the Puget Sound apocalypse.

Our town is effectively cut off from civilization as the rivers in the area have swollen to gigantical proportions. Here are a few photos:

This was taken a couple of months ago. Notice the mint-green buildings in the top left corner accross the river.

Here’s a broad picture of the flooding today. The mint-green buildings are in the back behind the submerged picnic structures and floating trash cans. You can click to enlarge.

Dan and his mom on a bench by the river:

The same bench yesterday morning:

Red arrow points to the same bench today:

Magoo and Auntie (isn’t she gorgeous?) at the park several yards from the river. Notice the trash cans in the background.

Same garbage cans, now floating, taken from the opposite direction. Don’t worry. Magoo and Auntie are safe on dry land.

Some family friends pose atop a wall at a major intersection. In the background you can see the bridge Dan would normally drive on to come home.

The Red Cross has been asking for clothes and blankets for the many people pulled from the river who are staying at local shelters. We currently have no access to a hospital, but the local grocery store is keeping up with demand for corndogs and tomato bisque so we’re in good shape.

Luckily we just practiced for a disaster and it scared me badly enough to stock up on anything we were lacking. It’s actually quite nice to have Dan home with us, our CD player still playing Backstreet Boys and the heater keeping us cozy on our tiny island. We’ve only run into a few problems.

Ballet class — the teacher left for a few minutes to pick up her daughter from school and while she was gone, the last road to our town became submerged in water. Laylee and the three other little girls who showed up for class were so sad that we slipped into the unlocked dance studio, turned on the music and let them go crazy, freestyle.

Voting — My polling place was across the river and although the bridge was still accessible when I headed out, I was afraid it wouldn’t be when I wanted to come back so I ended up filling out a provisional ballet at the one location near our house. By the time I finished voting, the last road had been closed.

Mice — Dan went into the attic to check for roof leaks and found something much more frightening than a $20,000 repair bill — MOUSE DROPPINGS!!!! ACK! BLECK!

Bad planning — Our crawl space is filling with water. Upon investigation, it appears that our gutters drain directly into a pipe that flows into the crawl space. There is no drain in the crawl space, just a giant swimming pool for the mice. ACK! BLECK!

For now the power is on so we can watch DVDs till our heads explode, blog, and nuke the corndogs (We do not eat corndogs on a regular basis. Corndogs are food reserved for circus trips, nuclear holocausts and floods).

DYM is hosted locally by a friend with very limited backup power so if our power goes out, the site will go bu-bye for a while. It will just add to the drama. Where is Kathryn? Can she cook her corndogs? Has she been swallowed by the great leviathan? You won’t know till the power comes back on and the power won’t come back on until the roads are clear and the roads won’t be clear until the waters subside and the waters won’t subside until the dove can bring us back an olive branch. And here I float in a house full of animal droppings. It seems almost biblical. Peace out.

(This happened a month ago. I am just now calm enough to blog the carnage.)

So I was sitting in a soggy tent in my back yard for three hours with 2 children under 4, no socks and a mother lode of nut-based products during the worst rainstorm of the year. So what? At least I learned something.

We’re big on emergency preparedness and food storage in my church and I’ve been kind of sort of a little bit working on it for as long as I can remember.

A few months ago, the leaders of a large group of congregations in the Seattle area announced that we were going to have a disaster drill, a “mock” disaster. Just about every Sunday from that time until now someone has mentioned emergency preparedness or disaster plans. I now realize they meant for us to plan what we would do IN a disaster, not plan how to create one.

Dan and I did the basic stuff. We picked an out of state contact we’d both call if we were separated and could only call out of state. From what I hear, this is common. During a major disaster, it’s often impossible to make local calls, but more likely that you can call your grandma in Wichita.

We built up our food storage. We bought a giant tent. We made 72-hour kits… sort of. We bought batteries, water storage containers, hand crank radios and flashlights. The day before the drill, one of the preparedness gurus in our women’s group got up and made everyone close their eyes. “No, I’m serious. Everyone close them now. If anyone still hasn’t put together their emergency kits, put up your hands. Keep them up. I’m still writing down names. Okay, keep them up. Okay, you can open your eyes now.”

I laughed my good natured, hair tussling laugh. Silly people. Like, helloo-ooo, we’ve been planning for this mock disaster for months. If you’re not ready yet, you are like, so totally LAY-AME.

Monday morning, I decided to “double-check” my supplies. My food seemed to be in order but I had no clothing, rope, radios, waterproof matches…um any kind of matches or pretty much anything but food in the kits. I bought the food. I bought the backpacks. I bought some pretty stuff to go in them. Where was the pretty stuff? I started to freak out. We were supposed to open a letter at 5:00pm telling us our fate and giving us specific tasks to carry out. I WAS NOT READY!!

So I called Guru lady. I don’t remember exactly what I said but it had something to do with not being prepared enough to tell her I was unprepared the day before and me being one of the 5 foolish virgins except I had 2 kids, but no oil and no baby wipes in my backpack.

She talked me down off the forget-this-stupid-drill ledge and told me I could get a “complete” kit at the fire station. She explained that “complete” did not include full-body waterproof suits with coated seams for all of my children. I’d have to buy those separately if I wanted them. “HA! Um, yeah. I think we can get by without those. Thanks.”

4:30: I pull into my driveway with the small red backpack, pack changes of clothes for the kids, 3 diapers for 3 days (I was thinking numbers), matches, camp stove (oh, for the LOVE! I should probably have thought of buying camp dishes. For the drill, I would just have to pretend I kept my regular pots and dishes in the disaster kit.), soup for dinner, sleeping bags, blankets, small flashlights in the backpacks.

4:45: I fill our giant water barrels and realize I have no way to get the water out of the barrels. Guru lady informs me that there is a store in downtown Seattle where I can procure a siphon sometime. Good thing I won’t be needing it today.

5:00: I call Dan to ask him what the letter says because I can’t find mine. We have had a major earthquake (something we look forward to any day now in Seattle), our homes are unstable so we need to find alternate shelter. All phone lines are down and power is out. If we can find a way to call out of state, we are supposed to call our out-of-state contact. Bridges are out.

5:05: We both call Dan’s parents to tell them we’re okay. Dan begins the long drive home, trying to get to me without using any highways or overpasses. I take the kids outside in their warm fleece jackets and place our emergency luggage in the doorway of the house so it won’t get sprinkled on. It’s beginning to rain.

5:10: The deluge continues at a rate I have never before witnessed in the state of Washington. Clearly, God is smiting me. I hate getting smit. It seriously seriously bites. The kids are soaked. I am soaked and the bottom of our gigantic 4-room mesh-ceilinged tent is filling with water. Magoo falls in the water face-first and begins to choke and sputter. Then he laughs. Ha ha. This is hilarious. I’m laughing on the inside. I hope DCFS is laughing when our neighbors call to tell them that I’ve taken my kids outside in the worst storm of the century to conduct an experiment in hypothermic insanity.

5:15: The tent instructions are destroyed except for the part that says it requires at least two adults to construct, preferably one with a masters degree in architectural engineering. I begin to think I should have gotten it out of the box some time before the drill.

5:30: I beg Noah to open the door and let me on the fetching ark. “I’m sorry I laughed at you, dude. I’ll sleep with the rhinos. We’re drowning. ACK! HELP!”

5:45: I abandon the canvas palace of watery doom and watch it sink to Davy Jones’ locker. Risking my life, I re-enter the unstable house to retrieve our small 4-man tent. I set this up in 5 minutes, sop the water out of it with half our emergency blankets, strip my children nude and throw them into the tent with a pile of damp sleeping bags and our 72-hour kit backpacks. Magoo verbally informs me of his mounting displeasure.

6:00: I dress everyone in fresh clothes in the soggy little tent and realize that I have forgotten socks. I again risk my life to go into the unstable building and retrieve footwear.

6:15: Upon opening our emergency rations I realize that nearly every item in my carefully packed food pouches is nut based — trail mix, protein bars, crackers with peanut butter in them. Magoo is not supposed to eat nuts until he’s two or I think his head will detonate. That’s what my sources tell me. I let the kids slurp down some canned mandarins and call it dinner. Laylee spreads nuts throughout the tent at approximately the rate I can fish them out of Magoo’s mouth. It works out nicely.

6:30: By this time I have realized that the single most important thing to pack in an emergency kit is something to occupy the children. I have bupkus. They are bored out of their minds and are driving me out of mine. If I had to go three days with them like this, I would have to be committed to the non-existent mental hospitals that had most likely been toppled by the earthquake.

By the time Dan got home around 7, it was dark, we were freezing and I had learned several valuable lessons, including but not limited to:

1. Don’t put off procrastinating till the last possible second. Procrastinate right away so you can get down to business before it’s too late.
2. Pack age appropriate food in your emergency kits. If you have a nursing baby, you may want to pack formula, rather than steak in her backpack.
3. Children wear socks. Think of the whole body when you’re packing extra clothes. If it’s winter where you live, pack gloves, hats, etc.
4. Seattle is a very wet place. I have not yet purchased full body rubber-wear for my kids but I’ve gotten a lead on where I can buy it from Guru lady, who I now spend as much time with as possible.
5. An emergency is all fun and games till you realize you didn’t pack any fun or games. For the love of CHEESE, save yourselves and pack a deck of cards or at the very least a roll of scotch tape.
6. Learn how to use all of your emergency equipment in advance.
7. Do not store all of your flashlights in the only room in your house with no windows.
8. Leave Noah alone. Maybe even hand him a mallet or something. You may need his help someday.

Walk yourself through a fake disaster sometime. See what would happen if you had to rely on your emergency supplies to get you through. I think you’ll be surprised at how much work you have to do. Prescription meds? Feminine hygiene products? Toilet paper? Not a nut? Cash in small bills? Know how to shut off your gas and water? Hand crank NOAA radio to listen for broadcasts about why the sky is suddenly green? An ounce of sanity?Š