To backtrack a bit:

The place where B and I spent the night of August 29 was a small Christian church. It was such a hectic time that I didn\’t quite figure out whether R and W are the two who live there and run the place; or whether it\’s S and D. But that hardly matters.

I think it was around 10:30 pm when we all decided it was time to go to bed; not that any of us expected to get much sleep. I decided not to try to sleep in the same room with the cats. I love cats; but I figured I wouldn\’t get any sleep at all with cats walking all over me.

There was a sort of commons room; and it had a recliner in one corner. I decided to try to sleep there; and as it turned out, it was a good thing I did!

Next to the commons room was the sanctuary; and the latter room had two large, square skylights. As I was trying to grab some shut-eye, I heard things blowing around outdoors; and soon I heard what sounded like repeated thumps against the wall outside.

I got up to try to find out what was causing that noise. I wandered into the sanctuary; and discovered that one of the skylight covers was missing! The skylights had shades over them; and the shade over the opened skylight was snapping and tugging in the wind; and of course rain was coming in.

I sounded the alarm; and we were all running around like chickens with our heads off for an hour or so. Maybe it was good, though; if I hadn\’t heard that shade flapping, we can\’t backtrack to before the storm to prevent it!

Stormy Weather

There was a piano near the skylight that needed to be covered to protect it from the rain; and S brought as many plastic tablecloths as she could find, so we could try to protect the carpet. We were digging out plastic trash cans; and large pots; and anything else possible to catch the rain. Meanwhile, one end of the skylight shade came loose.

Finally one of the men got up on a tall stepladder; and he used the dangling shade and another waterproof tarp to create a sort of funnel. The idea was to channel the rain into a large plastic garbage can. It seemed to help, because the next morning S, D, and R were saying that there seemed to be less damage than expected. I was declared a hero!

As my blogs go on, I may backtrack some more. As I said, so much happened in a few days!