conuly

I'm moderately concerned, but not altogether worried. My mother entered panic mode, but if you check out the map you'll see we're not really in any danger zone. (There are more specific maps, but they require you to type in your address.) We're on the North Shore of Staten Island (Staten Island is the island at the south of the map - yes, it's bigger than Manhattan, a lot of people don't realize this!), and if you take a look at the North Shore you'll see it barely has any red or orange or yellow at all. This is because this part of the island is all hilly, very hilly.

Now, if it gets more than a moderate drizzle we'll largely be trapped on our street, because the streets surrounding us are all going downhill for several blocks, and they become like rivers in any sort of real rain (so the only way off if you don't want to wade is to go uphill on a short little side street, and then walk north three blocks or so to another little side street that won't be very flooded. Less than ideal, but it'll do) but our block doesn't have that problem. There's houses and dirt and plants to sop up most of the run-off from "Mud Lane", as it used to be called.

All the same, I did finagle a spare cat carrier out of a friend of mine. I had intended to buy one, but the line in Petco was enormous (although it wasn't the longest line I saw, it was longest proportionate to the number of cashiers and the *size* of the store!) and my choices were either a $50 plastic carrier or an $9 cardboard one. I've used the cardboard ones before, they're well-constructed... but I think you can see the problem with this if we have to evacuate in a hurricane. (Especially if she kittens during the storm. God, I hope she doesn't. I don't think the girls would forgive her if they missed the blessed event, not that I'd let them watch. I'm always terrible at estimating when cats will give birth.)

And I did go to the supermarket, because we were out of toilet paper and NOBODY is going out in a hurricane to buy more.

Now, our local supermarket, EVERY TIME there's a weather incident or a holiday, people pack that store. And EVERY TIME you end up with a really long express line (lane 1) and lane 10 wraps around the store... and then lanes 2 through 9 will only have six or seven people in them each. Which is still far too many, but there's no call for the people to keep joining up in lane 10 when it's stupid! Two, three aisles down (not counting the bread aisle) are impassible due to the line! (Not that I complain until I'm safely out of the store. If the sillies are all occupied in their super long line, the remaining lines are shorter than they'd be otherwise, and that's all right with me!)

I will say this for the store itself, though, they managed something right. They weren't running out or low on water, or on anything else except bread... and they're always out of bread on a Friday. And they had a guy out front organizing the people waiting for car service and making sure there was never more than one shopper claiming a cart at a time. And they're opening half an hour early tomorrow, so I'll probably head out again to do some of my REAL shopping (everything but the meat, basically) and buy some candles. They weren't out of candles, I just couldn't get to that aisle and I gave up.

I've isolated the cat on my floor. She prefers the basement, but that's floody in the best of circumstances, and she's so big now I don't want to risk it.

And from that roof I get the biggest icicles. I'm sure we have icicles on all sides of our house, which I simply can't reach, but the ones I can get to from my window sometimes get as big as my arm or larger - I swear one year I had one bigger than Ana! But of course, she was smaller then.

I used to take these icicles for myself to lick and then throw out the window or keep in the freezer until summer (something which never works as well as you think), but now I give one each to the nieces. Oh, I know you're not supposed to eat snow anymore and all that, but they don't really eat that much of it before they get bored!

So the big icicles, in the corner by my window, are all gone. (We might get more again soon, it's been snowing off and on all day.) But the little ones I couldn't reach, at the far end, are still there. And it's so strange - they had started out going straight down, like you'd expect, but now that the snow on top has melted some and they're hanging on by a thread (one just popped off just now!) they're all leaning in at an angle, towards the porch. Maybe the base of the icicle wears away unevenly? But why on the side *away* from the sun, then?

This year, when it didn't, I said "Okay, so it'll rain next month, April showers and all that".

And when April came and it didn't rain and it didn't rain I said "Well, so it's a little dry, it's sure to rain for a few weeks in May". And when May came and went dry, dry, dry I said "Wow, dry spring - I guess we'll have a dry summer too. That's... well, one dry summer hardly means anything alone, we'll be fine".

And now it's June, and the month has barely started, and it's pouring down rain all day. And when the rain isn't coming in a steady beat it's pounding on and on in buckets, and when it's not doing that it's drizzling drizzling drizzling all over the place. Woke up the middle of the night to a thunderstorm, woke up this morning to drizzle, left Evangeline at naptime to rain rain rain.

THIS IS NOT COOL. (Actually, 61 degrees and wet weather *is* cool, but in the not-cool way.)

It's normal for us to get some mugginess in the summer, but this is getting absurd. It's not muggy, it's just damp, and it's so damp that even a reasonable distance inland, like we are, I can still smell the pervasive odor of seawater. That's fine at the beach, on a nice sunny day, but I don't like to have it all day, every day, in my own home. And it's not hot, and it's not cold, either. Having the fan on is too cool, having it off is oppressive and there's no breeze. And stepping outside is like going into a very thin bath, which is hardly better than being inside. And my hair's... surprisingly neat, considering the mess it usually is, but that's not the point. And the foghorn, day in, day out, whooo whooo whooo, and I'm going mad, I tell you, simply mad.

Does anybody someplace dry want to invite me for a visit? I promise not to be too much of a bother.