Wilma or Wilma Not? That's the question.

The sky is gray and I need a blue sky with white clouds to function properly, so this looks like a BAD day for me!



With tons of things I need to do and way behind in all fronts, this does not look so good. What's worse is what is looming. And what is looming is Wilma. She, and I think she is a girl, looks menacing. Unbelievably, this gray sky is a part of Wilma while she is still enjoying stirring up the waters off Cozumel and Cancun all the way down in Mexico. Lat night, all weather persons were busy displaying their expertise in interpreting the news coming from the National Hurricane Center, who is in the know, but is more mum. However uncertain, everyone is in agreement: it does not look good for Florida, and Florida is my favorite corner of the earth under the heaven where blue sky and white cumulus clouds are the norm. Do I miss these puffy cotton balls floating in the sky today. Last night, we had a precursor of things to come when an uproaring episode of thunder rolling in the distant night told me that bad days are knocking at the door. The supercells must have developed from cumulonimbus clouds to generate the loud series of thunderclaps. Good bye cumulus, and welcome Wilma.



Before getting into a panic mode, I know that all this hysteria must be cooly confirmed by scientific analysis, so I called on Google Earth for help. Help! Following the model predictions of where Wilma will venture in the next few days, it does look grim! If you fly North-East originating from Cozumel-Cancun, do you know where you will end up? You end up in the South Florida peninsula! OK. That is what everyone and his cousin are saying, that is where Wilma is heading and there is no doubt. She will head NorthEast after flirting with the fashionable Mexican resorts. The writing's on the wall. Stay calm! This is not the end of the world! It's only a cane, for crying out loud! OK, OK. Be rational, they say she is BIG, and DANGEROUS, but you know better. Put this thing in a proper perspective, she is tiny when compared to the entire earth. See? It's nothing. OK. Worry about it tomorrow or in a couple of days and keep your fingers crossed. Not that it will help! And please stop biting your finger nails!

There are good reasons, many good reasons I should panic because this scenario with the word disaster written all over it that is about to unfold has the potential to engender countless chores that are best left undisturbed. My house has hurricane shutters that costed several arms and several legs, and that was years ago. These shutters were deployed perhaps once in their lifetime, and I still shudder thinking about repeating that feat. The shutters I have are the top of the line and in principle, it requires no effort to deploy them. But that is not true. The last and only time I deployed them for no less than the notorious "Andrew" cane of years gone by, I had to scrape away several wasp nests and evict a family of tree frogs that made one of the window sills their home. And let me tell you, if you plan to scrape off wasp nests from your shutter rails, that is not a job for the faint of heart. You need goggles (no, not google, you nitwit,) heavy gloves, sharp and strong tools and a LOT of time on your hand. I have none of these tools nor the time so when Sunday rolls around, it will be very interesting. Now, I still remember vividly the struggle I had to evict that tree frog family from the shutter. I could just try to ignore their sad eyes and lock them in, but I have a heart, and cruelty is not a part of it. So with a small wooden stick, I tried to gently incite what looked like the head of the household to please move forward and out. Instead, the head of household remained flat as a green pancake, clinging with dear life to the rails deep in the most recessed corner and refused to budge. Giving up is not my nature either so I finally got all three members, the breadwinner, the house keeper and the baby green tree frog family to reluctantly jump out of the window and left. It was not easy, but not as hard as when I had to evict a family of coons living in my roof's crawl space. But that story is for another day less traumatic than this moment in my life.



You are now going to read something more pleasant. One day last month when I was going through my chaotic filing system (non system is more descriptive of what it is) I stumbled on the invoice of my now deceased Dell 15 GB jukebox. You may remember a former traumatic blog in which I recounted the encounter with the service person that felt my service call. The record I found clearly indicated that contrary to what I was told, my MP3 player was still under warranty! I would not let such an opportunity go unnoticed, so I contacted Dell again. One week later, they sent me a replacement unit as it was called for in the original invoice. Great. Now I have two MP3 players and I am trying to figure out what to do with the newly refurbished 20 GB jukebox. The moral of this happy tidbit of news? You begin to see the light if you rumble through your chaotic desk once in a while because you never can tell what you will find at the bottom of the pile.

OK. Battery? Checked! One here. Water? Checked! 2 bottles here! Candles? Checked! Half a dozen here! BBQ? Checked! Arrgghhh. need to scrub all the grease from Katrina times! Charcoal? Charcoal? Oh no!