Game of Thrones is over (FOR TWO YEARS WHAT) but I am trying to get back to normal blogging. I had an expansive and interesting post kicking around the back of my mind for the past week but then #Irmageddon began edging over the horizon like a big brightly colored anal fissure and my life is hurricane preparedness now.
You do what you can to prepare, and then the choice is sitting up all night having cardiac events every time leaves hit the window, or just go the hell to sleep and deal with everything in the morning.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a Florida native with extensive hurricane experience. Chances are, if it was hurricane above a category 3 that hit Florida between the years of 1978 and now, I have some memory of it, however vague. I actually slept through quite a few, since there’s really nothing you can do but ride it out. You do what you can to prepare, and then the choice is sitting up all night having cardiac events every time leaves hit the window, or just go the hell to sleep and deal with everything in the morning. It’s basically a form of Christmas that no one looks forward to, presided over by a big, soppy ball of wind and rain that leaves wreckage instead of presents.
Matthew was the first serious hurricane I’ve dealt with by myself. It was pretty daunting, considering I know exactly what hurricanes are capable of. Some hurricanes can cause tornados – 2004’s Charley, if I remember correctly, had something like 70 tornadoes, total. Some of them left literal trails of destruction, marked by giant billboards twisted around like pretzels or cars flipped onto their roofs. I’ve already talked about some of the stuff I saw in Miami after Andrew, and what my father saw after Hugo. And of course, there was the most well-known hurricane of all in recent memory: Katrina.
As a child I have a memory of going outside after a hurricane and finding our holly tree- an old tree with a trunk about 4 feet across- snapped off at the base. Just broken, the white heartwood gleaming in the sun.
So I took the news seriously and prepared.
I have a much longer post under construction concerning Hurricane Matthew. Spooky Con was cancelled due to the hurricane, so I have nothing to post about that. I’ll get the longer post-Matthew post up on Wednesday!
In the meantime, please enjoy this music video for ‘Genghis Khan.’ I first heard Miike Snow’s song at the gym, and when I looked up the video I fell madly in love. It’s SO. ADORABLE.
Were you in the hurricane? How did you do?
There is another hurricane bearing down on Orlando. Hurricane Matthew is currently a Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale as it batters the Bahamas right now. It is expected to drop to a 3, then rev back up to a 4 again by the time it hits Orlando.
As expected, nothing of import really happened.
…And then is heard no more: it is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. – Shakespeare, Macbeth
Let me be clear – it’s not that there wasn’t flooding, downed tree limbs, wet roads, and brownouts; it’s that this is just a thunderstorm, which is a normal occurrence in Florida. Normally we get a thunderstorm every day – a blue sky in the morning might be rumpled with charcoal clouds by around 4, with the appropriate thunder and lightning, and sheets of rain. Sometimes the rain falls so hard you can’t even see out your windshield.