Waiting for Frances

I spent the morning taping up windows and digging up some sandy dirt which I can use to make sandbags, if needed. I brought home some plastic sleeves from the newspaper office, which I can fill to make my own mini-sandbags. Hopefully, I won't need any, except maybe around the sliding glass door to the patio.

Everything that needed to be done outside, I wanted done this morning -- before it could start storming, and to make sure I had enough time to take a nice, warm shower afterward. The hot, humid air just smacks you when you go outside, and the simple act of putting tape over the windows left me soaked with sweat.

Now I'm just putting around the house, watching the TV coverage, and petting the animals. They sense something is up and all four of them are staying right under my feet. Good Old Boy and Betsy got baths yesterday so the house won't stink of damp dog so much -- now they smell like cheap shampoo. A definite improvement. I brushed a half-bushel (well, it seemed like it) of fur off Good Old Boy, who loves to be brushed, and less off Betsy, who hates it.

Jack the kitten is now officially Jack the Brat instead of One-Eyed Jack. The vet checked him Wednesday and declared his injured eye in amazingly good shape -- he's even seeing out of it. So it won't need to be removed. Yaayy! (But what I thought.) He's a miniature Tasmanian devil, screeching around the house. Cute personified.

Last night, Jack the Brat got up on the sofa with me, where I was lounging. He wedged himself between the sofa cushion and my leg, on his back, his front paws crossed over his chest and his big, back feet sticking up in the air as he snoozed. How could anyone resist something so adorable?

The hurricane hasn't hit here, in northern Central Florida, yet. Frances has been moving very slowly, and the eye of the storm will make landfall much later than originally projected. I gather from TV reports, a lot of people are getting really antsy -- especially the ones who've been in shelters since Thursday. Can't say as I blame them. The outer bands of the hurricane are creeping closer, and it's been windy, about 20-25 mph winds with some gusts, but nothing extraordinary. I'm guessing in another couple of hours we'll be getting some higher gusts here. They're already getting pounded down in Broward County and southern Brevard -- just from the outer bands.

I'm watching the satellite pictures, and Frances looks like a huge spider slowly moving over her prey to devour it. Her winds aren't as high as they were before she attacked the Bahamas, but her eye has spread out -- 70-80 miles wide now, and her wall has spread out, with hurricane force winds 120 miles out from the eye wall. She's just getting started on Florida. I hope people will be patient and use their common sense, and not decided to run out and check on their mobile or beachside home, or pick up a few more items. They could get caught in the nasty stuff.

I'll post again later, if I can. We'll have to see how long the power holds out.