Frances and Memories

The hurricane has pretty much stalled out over those folks in the Bahamas. I’m horrified for them. I also think I am not taking that big a hit. I think it will slowly move north. My concern is for the folks in Orlando. I have family there. It’s just unnerving to think they could get smacked yet again… and then Ivan is out there gaining strength as we speak. I’m really worried for those folks on the West coast. We spend a lot of time thinking about where it will make landfall, but once it gets here, those folks across the state are in for big trouble…trouble they don’t need. On a good note, it is weakening at a Cat 2. I have hopes for a Cat 1.

The blonde on the Weather Channel right now needs to go see a Botox Anonymous group or she got a bad face lift. She’s got that deer in the headlights look.

My sister and I were reminiscing about hurricanes today. When you grow up in a Navy family, you live coastal and hurricanes are something you learn to deal with. My folks, up in Pensacola, get tagged about once a year.

I was remembering the time we got hit by a Typhoon when we lived in Taiwan. We lived on the top of a mountain. By some weird fluke, whereas it was usually my Mom with us three kids when something bad happened, this time she was away and my Dad was the one home. Water came in under the doors of our gargantuan poorly built home. I think the house was made out of plywood. We had towels shoved at the edges of all the doors trying to keep the water out. Water was pouring in through the light fixtures in the ceiling. We had buckets all over the house catching water, and we were emptying buckets into sinks as they filled with water.

Then there was the time my sister was away at college and my Mom calmly called her from Pensacola after a hurricane and said, “Is there anything in your room, that you really really want to keep?” to which my sister replied, “Yeah! My pictures!” My Mom then said, “OK. I needed to know. It looks like the Oak tree outside your room is going to fall on the house. Thanks!” click. My sister said she wanted to yell, “Wait! You’ve got the time! Move out all my furniture! Save it all!” Luckily they were able to have someone come cut off the falling part before it fell on the house.

We laugh about this stuff… you can laugh after it happens. You don’t laugh during.