Cafe Hitch-hike

2022-09-27

Here comes the storm

Since it's been a while since we've had a serious storm, people here are taking Hurricane Ian much more seriously.

My brother has been almost blase about it, with his references to Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump when he's on the ship in the middle of a hurricane. I only hope he doesn't choke on those words cos his region is expected to get a lot of rain (and it already floods in times of unexpected heavy rains).

Last week, I abruptly decided to take a week off work. My family canceled our gathering for the end of October, and I wouldn't be able to take any time off in October and November. I was also super stressed as we crawl to the end of the work project from hell. I also owed my friend a visit to his place in Kentucky. I shuttered my home (I have storm shutters), took important documents and 4 days worth of clothes, and headed there with the dog.

I hoped this wasn't like what happened in March 2020, when we were sent home to work remotely for a week. I returned to the office 14 months later, to see my dry erase calendar say "March 2020," and I felt like I was in a weird dream.

But, in the meantime, my region is getting lots of rain and heavy wind expected tomorrow. My place is not in a flood zone, but we'll see how well our haphazardly created drainage and means of water retention work for what will be a slow moving storm. 'Slow moving' being not-good since if the storm doesn't move and we get lots of rain and wind, then the more likely we will get damage and floods.

I remember schooling someone on the perils of hurricanes.

"Floods are a problem," I said. "We are a dozen feet above sea level and as flat as a pancake. There's not many places for water to go when we get too much at once."

He didn't believe me, and then a part of his city unexpectedly flooded by unusual weather, and multiple people died.

Anyhow, I relax with a pal in the foothills. He made it a point to tell the neighbors a tall brunette with a dog was his guest so I guess they won't think I'm trespassing if they see me without him. Yeah, that could possibly get bad.

Storms, storms everywhere and around us. I read one one of these DL pages how someone thought there was beauty watching the world as we know it crumble. I wouldn't call it beauty for me, but intriguing. I felt things falling around me before I left, wondering what it would be that fell from mine.

Then lately I think of him before I sleep, touching me and feeling a thirst for it. I then wake up wishing for all of him before I fully rise. And yet it is perfectly OK because the thoughts feel like clouds floating through with me seeing something in the abstract shapes and puffs, knowing they will disperse, yet feeling contentment in that moment with what I imagine before, like clouds, they dissolve.

downwind | upstream