It started with the total eclipse, followed by first day of school, panic-buying at the grocery stores, tornadoes, a bitch of a hurricane, more tornadoes, then the flooding…and more flooding…and even more flooding. The last two weeks were action packed. Two weeks of my life I could certainly live without.

But life goes on. My family and I were fortunate enough to live through this historic catastrophe unscathed. And while i have never felt so relieved, my heart bleeds over my neighbors and friends who were not as fortunate.

Through it all, there was food. As the news broke that it was going to be a big catastrophe, I knew people would panic. So before leaving for work, I did my grocery shopping at 6 in the morning. My freezer was packed so I had to start cooking some stuffs to give them a longer life in case we lost power. I have ordered the most amazing oxtail from Wisconsin so I cooked that, along with some baby back ribs and steak (for sandwiches).

This is my trademark tornado dish. We were hiding out in the safe room for almost a day, sneaking out to eat and this is what we’ve been eating. I don’t think I’ll be eating this anymore. Not good for my PTSD.

The following days of tornado and hurricane were harrowing. I had to make comfort foods. Noodles are the Asian mac n cheese. There is something about hot noodles that make me feel like i’m home and safe.

Yes, these are not calorie-friendly. We each gained an easy ten pounds during these most trying times.

Finally, Harvey is gone. The rivers have crested and we did not flood. We had bad case of cabin fever so we went out to celebrate. Beans was out helping his friends clean up the neighborhood and requested take-out. We went to our local Jap restaurant (Akashi) then to B’s wine bar.

Tomorrow, we bring the stuffs down to the first floor. It will be a long day. Like everyone else in the city, we will rebuild and bring everything close to what it was pre-hurricane.

We prevailed!

We will rise.