Surrealistic Weather

The weather for the past three days has been glorious.  Clear, bright, DRY, almost cool (OK, in the 80's, but after months of high 90's that seem cool enough).  It's like fall just decided to drop in for an unexpected visit--and it's a visitor  that we want to stay.  If I lived under a rock, far from TV and the internet and didn't venture off my own piece of property I would be reveling in it.  Alas, no.

In the next 48 hours the weather is going to kick our ass.  We don't know how hard.  It might just be a bit of a buttock-bruising.  Or it might be enough to knock out our teeth.  Hurricane Irma, the Mother of All Storms, is heading our way.   Maybe

We've had to go into town, but we've done it carefully.  6.3 million people evacuating in a state causes major traffic jams (yesterday I-10 was logjammed from I-75 to Pensacola--think of a 300 (think of it slowly--THREE HUNDRED) mile stretch of bumper-to-bumper traffic.  Fortunately for us, in these day of using GPS instead of a paper map not too many people realize that there are alternate routes, one of them being Hwy-20, which is the only road that goes to our house.  It's busier than usual, but not too bad.

We drive to the grocery store.  On the way we notice that most of the gas stations are out of gas.  The open ones have long lines.  It's hard to find a parking spot--and when you do get in, you see bare empty stripped shelves.  We did most of our prepping a week and more ago, so we just needed a few non-emergency things.  This confused the woman at the register, who looked at our purchases and commented "you're just doing some ordinary shopping??"

It's hard not to flip on the TV or check on the computer because we really want to know what's happening, or, more importantly, is going to happen.  And no one knows--but all the stations are trying for ratings so they just keep flogging the guesswork.  Will it hit our area?  Well, *something* will, because this storm is bigger than the entire state of Florida.  We might just get a strong "wind event."  Or a tropical storm.  Or a Cat 1 hurricane.  Or Cat 2.  Maybe Cat 3.  Not much rain.  Or 1-5 inches of rain.  Or 5-10 inches of rain.   All of the prediction maps joined together for a wide potential swatch known officially as the Cone of Uncertainty.   Less, officially, the Cone of Doom, or, more graphically, the Cone of the Pinched Sphincter.

We should be fine.  Or we might not have a house in 48 hours.  We might lose power and water for a few hours, or a few days, or a few weeks.

We've done what we can.  Lots of water stored (it's recommended that you have 1 gallon per person per day--but that doesn't allow for the fact that it takes 4 gallons to flush a toilet.  Lacking an outhouse, I like to have flushing water available).  Non perishable food that doesn't have to be cooked.  Propane stove in case we want a cup of tea.  We've done all the laundry.  Have the emergency battery radio.  Batteries in the flashlights.  Chocolate chip cookies on hand.

So that's it for now.  Lovely cool weather, some nice breezes, all is well.  The forecast for Tuesday should also be clear and lovely.  Sunday and Monday--maybe not so much.  We'll see.