NFSL - They Got Hurricane Parties Every Time It Blows

I was thinking about Carpenter’s song last night as I left work and it WASN’T RAINING OR WINDY. This normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but we were told, by all of the experts, that we were supposed to get slammed with the first ass-kicking yesterday: hurricane force winds, more rain than God could count, power outages. I let my brother know at 9:30 am that we might get slammed, and his return text was “Ten four good buddy meet you at the hummer on top of mt Hamilton.” I had to stop giggling somehow from that one. My brother is a skeptic.
But these are scientists, right? So I believed, mentally counting the candles and matchbooks in the apartment, deciding soup wasn’t a good idea because I’d have no way to heat it, running through the Red Cross checklist in my mind. I even pulled up the radar loop on the SFGate site and scared off 11 or 12 sales reps who decided to cut their meeting short and leave before it got too bad. And the radar DID look nasty.

But…nothin’.

I am reminded of a conversation I had once with my brother when we still lived together. Anywhere else, it seemed to me, the weather broadcasters had a higher ratio of getting it right than they did in California. Then it occurred to both of us—there was no land west of California. Weather forecasters were making bets based on what they saw over the water, and as we all learned with Katrina and the rest of the hurricanes, a weather system is pretty unpredictable over a water mass.

Poor guys.

Well, maybe round Two will show up today and those with sandbags from the City and County and crank flashlights won’t feel duped.

Meanwhile, I feel lucky. As Garrison Keillor said once, “It could be worse.” Okay, maybe he said it twice. Yes, it could be worse.

The storm could sock us today and right through the roughest of winds, we could get the 8.5 shaker.

I’m just grateful enough today that there’s enough moisture in the air to stop my nose from bleeding and that I have a place safe and dry to watch the raindrops.

And I’m grateful that I got all of the sales reps to leave by broadcasting radar on my computer.

Big smile there.

“When it lifts me up, gonna find my feet…the moon is out, wanna head on over to the Twist and Shout…”

C’est soir!