big wind

Yesterday people were already starting to panic.  There were lines at the gas stations and more people than usual at the grocery store. (I was there for cookies and rice milk.  Comfort food.) Big, dark clouds hovered low in the sky and I was ready for heavy rain.  I doubt that it rained at all last night.  If it did, it wasn't enough to be heard over the table fan that throws oscillated breezes over my sleeping arrangements. I say bring it on.  It has been so hot that I, the always-cold kid, have been running the a/c and putting the sun shade in the car window.

I used to love getting into my car after being in a/c for hours.  Now I regret that I live too close to work to get the car cold before I get home.  I am so glad that I got new bearings in my a/c clutch assembly earlier this year.  My car is probably the main reason I owe almost as much as I make each year.

When the weather gets cooler, I am definitely going to contemplate bicycling to work.  Except crossing US 1 is a scary proposition because this town is, for many who drive our roads every day, just a nuisance making their trek to and from work longer.  Folks don't seem to care about the whole place being a construction zone.  The still want to do 60 (or more) in the 45.

Our amoral society never took philosophy. Even if nobody is coming in any direction, you should still stop at stop signs.  There are other things that you can cheat at.  When you captain 2000 pounds (or more) of death, you ought to be considerate of your fellow man and play by the rules.  There are still stoplights ahead.  The tortoise and the hare applies.  The anxiously inconsiderate soul who rides your bumper and then cuts closely in front of you for spite will just be right in front of you at the stop light.

And when I roll up and slide on through the light while he has to gun to get chugging again I think about how much gas I saved and how much he wasted in his oversized SUV.  These are the people that are always in a big hurry.  Probably fleeing from a gas station drive-off.  I love my little car.

But I started off talking about the coming storm, Katrina.  I refuse to panic. 

I am house-sitting this weekend.  The only thing that might change is whether I take my cat with me or not.  I am not afraid of hurricanes. I am more afraid of being shut-in with my family for a week again.  Tornadoes, though, are quite another story. 

The truth is that people with any brains have been preparing for this eventuality since the last "big one."  My step-mom has a bookcase in the laundry room filled with flashlights, food, Gatorade. 

I own about five flashlights now.  Two of which are hand-cranked.  When your house is boarded up and dark all day long,and you're there for a week and then confined mostly to home afterward because of the conditions outside, batteries run out quickly.

People who have hurricane windows or clear shutters are fortunate people indeed.  The absence of light is the absence of happiness.

I'm not concerned about the storm.  I am concerned about what it will mean, wherever it hits.  My new lover has no insurance on her townhouse.  Fun, fun, fun.

I think about last year and how hard it was for people I care about who work for a local health department.  They could well do without going through that again.  They were really traumatized.  And the buttheads who run that county want to build the new hurricane shelter on an island.  They are freaking crazy.

Alas.