Mobile Alabama

I'm listening live via internet to a station in Mobile, Alabama as Ivan comes onshore. If you click on "Click here for live video!" you'll get what I'm watching. It must be so reassuring to those who are listening via battery to hear these calm human voices tying them in their shuttered, battered homes to the rest of the community. It may seem odd, my interest in hurricanes, but I live in South Florida and we've faced two in the past month and we'll maybe face one this coming weekend - so I sympathize as only a fellow sufferer can, with those in Alabama. I'm praying for them all as I listen. I'm praying that civilization is not overcome by nature; that the calm voices or community keep on talking through the worst Ivan can dish out.

It's going to be a long night on the coast of Louisiana/Alabama/Missippi/Florida and these good people in a Mobile newsroom are spending this whole night with those who need to hear their lifeline voices.

I cannot tear myself away. Outside now, in South Florida, there isn't even a breeze. Hard to believe that not so very far away, hell on earth is being experienced by so many. I've often thought of time travel at these times. Imagine, if you will, a Jewish person on a train to Auchwitz. Caught in an inescapable journey to death, but for time. If that person were able to travel back in time at that same location, they would find themselves in a totally different set of circumstances, delivered from the peril of their present. We're all stuck in now. The people in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana are stuck in now. If only they could get in a time machine and press a button. They'd be out of danger and into a new situation. They could always come back later, after the trouble has passed. We're victims of time and place, victims of gravity and the rules of this planet we live on.

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posted on Sunday, September 05, 2004 6:54 PM

3 AM

Well, it's 3 am and I'm listening to the wind outside. It's getting less aggressive as the storm moves north. I am thankful once again to the Lord for my preservation. He takes care of His children. Those to the north, He will care for in the midst of the chaos. Off to bed with me - I've kept the watch long enough for tonight.

It's been an interesting hurricane season so far - next weekend we could be threatened with Ivan!

Hurricane Sounds Like Blizzard

I’m listening to a hurricane

Through shutters

The sound is like the blizzards

Of childhood

The real hurricane is north of us. The real demon is about 80 miles away, while here, it sounds like a memory to me.

So it’s not scary.

The rattling metal panels sound like the wind rushing through the nooks of the attic of childhood.

All night long, the outer windows rattle and shake with the blustery, icy wind. It sounds like I need to snuggle deeper under the double layer of quilts on my bed.

My father has turned the heat down to minimum and we’ve opened our windows a crack to let in the fresh frozen air.

Tomorrow I’ll wake up

To a snowy, glittering landscape

I’ll have to put on my snowsuit.

Cumbersome pants and jacket, hood, mittens, heavy socks and boots.

But I can make angels in the snow.

Outside, free of the world ruled by my mother, in the great BackYard

I can dig my way into the whiteness, make tunnels in the snow.

The whiteness will blind me and there will be a great deep blue expanse overhead.

It will be so cold my nose and cheeks will be red. I’ll be free

Until lunch time and the dog comes outside, to grab the handle of my snow saucer

And spin me around on top of the crusty, icy drifts

Laughing and giggling out loud.

A Little Poetry

I believe this with all my heart. No matter what our physical bodies say, we are eternally young and full of life. When we shed these useless shells, we shall see what we are truly capable of:

Deep inside
I don’t care how old I get
Is the 15 year old

It isn’t sex
It’s the Life Energy
That runs through the veins
The spiritual veins
The eternal veins

That was most real at 15.

The young body is just a symbol for
The eternally young spirit

That inhabits me.

That spirit will live forever
Forever 15 in zest, in flight.

How could anyone not believe
In the eternal soul

None of us are old
As our bodies are old

We are ourselves
And our bodies mock this self, aging
And decrepit.

I hope my body dies forcing
Itself to be young, against a heart that is all muscle and meat.

The heart will stop, freeing the trapped
Beauty within.

Then I can soar amongst the clouds that
Only threatened rain before.

Sheds

Whatever you do DON'T buy one of those big plastic sheds at Lowe's for way too much money!! If you put stuff in them, they fall apart. After putting all our yard items (bird feeders, planters, yard implements, etc.) in the shed, it fell apart this AM. So now we have to take everything out, rebuild it using nails this time (it doesn't come with them and isn't supposed to need them) and then put everything back in. I'd rather let it all blow away, actually. Crap.

OK - Latest Coordinates

Frances is getting closer and closer.....

Hurricane Preparation

I just spent this morning bringing in all the bird feeders, lawn decorations, wooden edging, bringing in everything from the screened in porch, making ice, doing laundry......ad infinitum.

Lots of stuff fit in the shed. Hopefully IT won't blow away. Meanwhile, the side of the house the shed is on was like a garbage dump. Old bags of mulch, potting soil, overgrown weeds....so I had to weed wack, kill two wasps nests before I could pick up a plastic chair and the piece de resistance:

I went to move the mulch and I did it carefully thinking that something would be under it - and I was right. I pride myself on being cool and calm around critters - I even like to pick up a lot of things other women run from screaming. However, when I moved the mulch, something BIG moved inside the bag - moved fast and exited the hole at the end of the bag. I thought at first it was one of my favorite lizards - the Jungle Runners we have living in our yard - but no. It was a rat. A nice fat one - not mouse sized at all. And it ran right at me, then dove into the shed. I screamed not once, but twice and my daughter came running out. She KNOWS I NEVER scream. Anyway, once I realized what had happened, I left it alone. I figure if it wants to shelter in the shed from this storm - so be it. We can do something about it next week - meanwhile, live and let live. I kept stuffing things in the shed and that was that.

I still have to make the bed, finish laundry, clean the floor
(why, you ask, if the house is going to blow away, am I cleaning? It's because I am a woman and I'm irrational that way, so don't bug me). Once I'm done, I'm going to have copious amounts of wine and then tomorrow when the big blow starts, I will be in a corner somewhere underneath blankets and pillows, rolled in the fetal position. I hate wind. I think I live in the wrong place, n'est pas??? C'est la vie.

Latest Latest - Frances

Frances is now supposed to hit land around Fort Pierce, but since this has changed constantly - who knows??? I guess we'll know late Friday, that's for sure.