clean up

I smell so terrible that sitting here I can smell myself. I probably shouldn't be in public subjecting other people to my stench, but I suppose most of the people here have had a day very similar to mine.

Clean up at STI continues. We've spent almost the last week working up at the facility and so far it's including mundane tasks like sweeping, scooping debris out of tanks, nailing old displays back into place. And then occasionally we have only slightly more entertaining tasks like building new shelves or shoveling sand into place behind Gerry's tank. Granted all the work leads to the same outcome and we leave everyday drenched with sweat, stinky and absolutely exhausted. Fortunately the power in my apartment came back on a few days ago so I've spent two lovely nights in the air conditioning listening to music as I fall asleep. The first night, after only about 30 minutes of power, I went to bed in a still warm apartment only to wake in the middle of the night to a sensation I no longer recognized. I was cold. Having a refrigerator, at least recently, seems like an incredible luxury. Disasters like this tend to put things in perspective, even though the tougher camping part, in reality, only lasted a few days.

I want NOTHING more than to go home and take a cold shower so I'll end with a little list of thank yous. Two different days we've had volunteers who brought lunch to everyone working at STI - it was such a generous gesture and was very appreciated. We've had lots of encouragement from people around the city and we periodically have people stopping in to check on progress - also appreciated. SPI and PI have been very generous with all of the locals and we've really benefited from the ice, water and food they were handing out. Today I went to the local clinic where they were giving free tetanus shots - granted the shot hurt and I'll be sore tomorrow, but it was a great way to keep all these hard working people healthy given the conditions. And lastly I want to thank the Port Isabel Library and my librarian. I came in today with a bunch of books that were due the day before the hurricane and were very late, but they are not charging fines for any ones overdue books right now. Thank you thank you to everyone. STI is healing and looking better in part because of all of your help and support, you really do help us push forward.

Tari - Thank you for the offer, but we actually have a couple generators up at STI now so I think we're set.
Connie - We'd love to meet you, I hope you will be able to come down to TX after all.
Chrissy - Thank you for your thoughts! I'm so glad you were able to see STI in all it's glory, it's a bit of mess now.

Appreciate your local librarian.