Tropical Whiff

As I write this, it's barely raining, and the wind is "gusting" to about 15 mph. Despite these mild conditions, our city is effectively shut down for the second straight day, afraid of what might have been. What WAS, was Tropical Storm Fay, which missed us and is heading up Florida's West Coast, bringing much needed rain.

This is the only time of year I wished I lived somewhere else. The hurricanes are tolerable --my family survived Andrew, the most powerful to rip through here in 100 years --it's the media hype and anxiety I can't stand.

My office roommate Mark does something I hope to someday emulate: he leaves town at the first sign of a "storm event." He owns a high rise condo on Brickell with impact resistant glass, and figures there's nothing he can do to protect it anyway. He simply flies to Chicago, or NYC, and checks into a nice hotel, leaving all of the worry and annoyance behind. While we're checking storm paths and schlepping patio furniture, and buying gas for generators, he's eating steaks and watching plays.

Of course, D2 still has 2 years of high school left, so it's not as easy to flee, but someday I plan to close my accordions at the first scent of one of these annoyances and take flight like a storm avoiding bird.

Yesterday the media actually got a wish come true. While a news crew was setting up on Ft. Lauderdale beach, an idiot on a kite sail forgot to let go when the wind gusted, and the camera caught him being gruesomely pulled across the sand before smashing into a building on the other side of A1A. CNN picked up the story, and all of the reporters got to moralize about how "dangerous thses storms can be." No --being a moron is what's dangerous!

I avoid the TV as much as I can, but I'm thwarted by Wifey. I don't know that Wifey ever walks into a room in our house without turning on the TV. Then she watches and asks me what the reporters mean. As soon as she leaves, I shut the damn thing off (unless football, The Sopranos, or any of the Godfather movies happen to be on).

So --hopefully we'll be back to normal function tomorrow, having "dodged a bullet" as the latest clown director at the Hurricane Center just cliched. I haven't trusted those guys since Andrew, when their one day before the storm prediction said the hurricane would hit Palm Beach County, causing me to keep my elderly mother with me in South Dade, away from harm.

Of course, my house was in ground zero, and my mother got to watch the roof blow away over us, while we huddled inside a car in my garage, hoping that the car's roof would protect us from any falling beams.

They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Tropical Storm Fay just made us all annoyed.