Hurry up and wait

I feel like that giant rock monster in The Neverending Story, sitting around and waiting for The Nothing. “They look like such… good… hands…” (As an aside, I caught that a couple of months ago and unlike Labyrinth, Neverending Story really holds up on all levels. And I’m sorry, because I love me some David Bowie, but when watching Labyrinth again a couple of years ago, for most of it I just thought “what the shit?” — I had forgotten all the bad acid trip stuff and really just remembered David Bowie and some chick chasing a baby through an Escher print.) ANYWAY. Hurricanes.

It’s hard to believe it’s still a day and a half away. I mean, we’ve been preparing for it for about two days already! How can it not have happened?! Hurricane prep is all rush-rush-rush-get-ready and then sit and wait it out. No wonder board games are on the list of suggested prep items (note to self: find Cards Against Humanity box and move that to studio, I bet Cetty and Joe would laugh themselves sick playing that).

I’ve mentioned before that we already have the basics. But I still wanted to go shopping for stuff for dinner for the next couple of days, and stock up on some things that don’t require cooking in order to eat, should power go out for a few days. So now we also have some crackers and canned foods that haven’t expired (I’m seriously afraid of some things from the back of our pantry). While at the grocery store – which was more crowded than I’ve ever seen it, and of course bread and water were almost gone – I heard many people talking about why they were buying so much… and most of it was that family members on the east coast were coming to stay with them, not that they were frightened of power outages and roving bands of cannibals and general anarchy (you laugh, but I’ve always wondered, having grown up on post-apocalypse fiction, how long it would take humanity to crumble in a major event, and Hurricane Katrina showed me the lead time on anarchy is about 12 hours. Ugh. People).

Then Joe spent a good portion of the day yesterday cleaning up the yard, pulling things into the shed or workshop, where they won’t catch flight in the wind. I pulled most of the hanging plants down — I’d just hung them in early spring and the branches of the trees on which I’d hung a few of them have already overgrown the hooks of the planters! And when Tim got home he did a little more of what Joe had been doing, and also fired up his chainsaw and made sure it’s running OK and has a sharp blade.

All our cars are full of gas – again, the gas stations here more crowded than I’d ever seen. The one closest to our house had lines out into the highway, and the big BP up the road with four or five pumps also had cars two or three deep on each side. I had half a tank but decided to top it off (in case of a worst-case scenario of having to evacuate… once I get two dogs and six cats into that car I’m not opening the door until we get to a pet-friendly hotel) and the guy next to me was filling up not only his giant vehicle but also three pretty hefty-sized gas cans. Many people at the station also had cans… I’m thinking gas-powered generators?

Speaking of which, Cetty and Joe have a generator for their RV and in a pinch we could hook up the studio fridge and maybe the water pump to it.

In between all this preparation, I’m still trying to work my job. But it’s hard to do things like plot the release of a new yarn on Friday if I don’t know if I’ll even have power….! So I’m working as I can, but also telling people not to expect much of me from later today through Saturday or Sunday.

But then here’s the thing… it could be that nothing happens. You just never know with Hurricanes. Sure, it’s PROJECTED to climb up the coast… but it might take an eastern header out into the sea. It might come on land near Ft. Lauderdale and go straight across the state to Pensacola. It might get halfway up to St. Augustine and cut across sideways and down to Tampa. A projection is a best guess, but it’s not a deal set in stone. Hurricanes are very “prepare for the worst, hope for the best”.

I will post tomorrow morning if we still have internet and electricity. We have satellite TV and satellite internet and both tend to get blocked by heavy southern clouds, so we might not have any online access even if we have power. I could, in a pinch, use my phone as a mobile hotspot if my Verizon data signal is getting through, but again, won’t know till we get there. The storm is projected to be due east of us at around 2 PM, which means it’ll probably start getting bad around 7-8 AM and won’t slow down for about 12 hours. But I’ll post wherever I can (here, Facebook, or Instagram) and let people know how we are, when I can.

Peace out, y’all!