Stuff

What we brought with us:

• three cats
• documents relating to home and car
• about three changes of clothes each
• some food
• dental floss
• toothbrushes
• Xy’s contact lenses
• meds
• dope
• my cheap-ass Panasonic video camera
• a Nikon Coolpix 990, which belongs to the University
• The Boat of a Million Years

What we didn’t bring but wish we had:

• my G4 iMac
• photo albums
• jewelry
• Xy’s teaching documents
• personal documents such as Social Security cards, birth and marriage certificates
• my contact lenses
• a perfectly good box of Banrock Station shiraz
• The guinea pigs Mopsy and Marcelle — we weren’t able to retrieve them from Xy’s school. I hear the school fared well through the storm, but the pigs are undoubtably dead by now, unless someone rescued them.
• my journals

If only we’d been thinking more clearly when we evacuated! But it was in the wee hours of the morning and I’d only had three hours of sleep.

It’s only stuff, of course. And assuming our house doesn’t burn down, we may be able to retrieve some of the things listed above, which were mostly on the second floor, and therefore more likely to be dry.

Except for my journals. A year ago, when Ivan threatened, I had the foresight to bring them upstairs. We didn’t even evacuate that time. This time, when we did evacuate, I left them in a cardboard box on the floor downstairs. They are assuredly destroyed.

And that’s my biggest regret. Those journals were a special kind of stuff, infostuff, reflections and notes on about a decade’s worth of my life, or more. I wrote most intensively in the mid-80s, I guess. About once every other year, I’d leaf through them and lose myself in memories for hours.

I put a smattering of entries online years ago, but most of them are gone forever. Oh well.

Update: Some people have asked about the ROX masters. I can’t believe I left off them off the list, as they are possibly even more precious to me than my journals. So here’s the rundown: I mailed all the 3/4″ SP masters to J in Montana over the last year or two. That’s mostly the third season. I had a few VHS masters from earlier shows which should be safe in my 5th-floor office at the University. The other early masters are in the CATS archive at the MCPL in Bloomington. As for the more recent DV masters (4th season), they were last seen in my office at home. Should have taken them. Here’s hoping they’re OK.