The networks may be debuting new shows, but it's the same-old, same-old on local channels. The third hurricane wait in a month promises to be as tough on the psyche as it is on any structure.
Things and people that may have bent for the last two are getting ready to break. Palm trees lose much of their charm in the shadow of plywood sheets covering every glass surface... again.
The cycle of:
1)watching people buy plywood on the news,
2)weatherman standing sideways in the wind
3)and the ruins homecoming
is getting old.
It's hard not to suspect the news teams have bugged out and are rerunning the same tapes from the last storm.
Coastal residents (ourselves included) pay little attention to overdevelopment discussions when the sun is shining. There's a "blow up the bridge" mentality that says things have to stop -- right after I have mine.
So Mother Nature is offering a little attitude adjustment. There is no truth to the rumor that she is taking kickbacks from the Cleveland and Buffalo Visitors' Bureaus. She's just doing what she does best, remind us that she's in charge.
(Although Jeb Bush is not directly denying rumors that the storms are tied to a science fair project completed by John Edwards during the Vietnam years).
I'm supposed to get on a plane in Jacksonville early Monday morning and return from JFK in the wee hours of Wednesday. As of this morning, departure and return are at Ivan's pleasure.
Looking at yet another weekend of obsessive Weather Channel discussion, I'm not sure I care about the return flight.
If not for leaving behind a perfectly good husband, daughter, friends and a couple of pets , I'd be delighted to wait out the rest of the alphabet up North.
The outside track for Ivan has him skimming to the northwest and hammering the Gulf states. It's nothing personal, but Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana or Texas -- we'd appreciate it if you took a turn.
Ivan may be terrible, but we're even crankier.




Copyright 2004 Judi Griggs