Like most folks on the East Coast of the US. we sit here tonight waiting for Hurricane Irene.. Diane and I closed  a few windows.. but aside from that, we’re content to let the storm have it’s way with us.    This brings back many cool memories from growing up in Houston when we’d be glued to the tv waiting for reports on an impending storm.. .. we’d get out candles, buy batteries.. fill the tubs with water.. My favorite thing was taping up the big plate glass windows in our den.. The idea.. I think.. was that the tape would somehow keep the shards of glass from flying around if the window was broken by a flying tree limb.. or car.. or cow or something. I knew better, though.. I knew that the simple act of putting tape on the windows appeased (or angered) the storm gods such that the storm would either dissipate.. or would land on some less (or more) fortunate town.

My memory may be a little warped here.. but it seems to me that the worse the storm was supposed to be the more likely it was to be a dud   Life can be like that.. expectations are such a dangerous thing..

That’s not to say that the storms did not sometimes deliver a good show.. I remember many days of watching the huge oaks in the backyard  whipping around.. I remember they looked like they were fighting.. I remember huge sheets of rain.. then the weird calm greenish light as the eye of the storm went over..

I also remember the days we got off from school for storms.. I always have told my kids that they have it pretty good that they get off for snow.. it’s mush more fun to go and play in the snow … than it was to go play in the hurricane..

Though I do remember one funny story.. we were off from school  one day for a hurricane.. in the afternoon the bayous that drained Houston were all at flood stage.. for some crazy reason a couple of us ran a rope across one of the big ditches that drained into the bayou.. and used it to haul ourselves back and forth through the churning water…. That same stunt got Kingsley Dye pulled into a culvert once.. (he was rescued)   Anyway,  I’ll never forget seeing all the toilet paper left on the grass the next day where we were swimming.. .. the sewers had all overflowed and we were swimming in…. oh never mind..

The reports f the storm caused our friends Steve and Mathew from PA to abort their Long trail hike today.. so we went and rescued them.. they’re here tonight waiting on the storm with us..   which is making the waitign a little more festive..

There’s a funny contrast between this peculiar calm before Irene.. and what happened earlier.. This morning, our good friends the Townsends moved out.. Ian, Matt and Hannah are headed off to college in Montreal..

Since last November, various combination’s of Deb, Ian. Hannah and Britt have been staying with us.. which we have really loved.. now everyone is heading off into the next chapter of their lives..   So are their.. and our many friends..   The beginning of the school year is always a time of change for us.. people scatter and get back into their non summer lives. . We go back to the three of us here in the house.. it’s peaceful.. quiet..and sometimes a little too quiet.. but we adjust…. we have to.. no choice.. and we wouldn’t really ave it any other way..

OK.. time to get going..

more tomorrow.. good luck with the storm.. stay dry everyone !

note all, nite sam

-me