Shit

my current feelings can be summed up by that one word. stupid tropics. i want to act like i'm three again and lay in the floor throwing the worst tantrum anyone's ever seen. tropical storm cindy was a little worse to us here in mobile than t.s. arlene was a couple of weeks ago... and dennis looks like it's coming straight for us - using the same damn path ivan did back in september. damn damn damn. damn (soon to be) hurricane! here, have a look at dennis's projected path for yourself. what's right in the middle of the path? mobile, of course, because the tropics hate me.

but this post isn't really about t.s. (for now) dennis. it's about t.s. cindy, which is technically not a tropical storm anymore. i was rudely awakened at 3:30 this morning by blinding flashes of light and a mega loud buzzing/whining sound to find that our power was out and cindy had arrived in mobile. the sound i'd heard was a nearby transformer trying to come back on and give us our precious AC back. but no dice - the power stayed off. after setting the alarm on my cell phone, i was wide awake and could only lie in the bed, listening to the storm and remembering ivan. needless to say, it was not a pleasant night. cindy was a much more tame storm than ivan, which was obvious from the lack of the freight train death sound of the wind in the eye wall of a major hurricane. during ivan, i sat huddled in a hallway surrounded by pillows listening to that awful sound for 6 hours (we never got a break - from the movement of the storm, the eye never passed over us - instead flomaton was in ivan's eye wall for 6 hours). and that was after having a tree fall on my in-laws' house, where chad and i were staying (for the record, i wanted to run away and get a hotel in louisiana but was talked into staying in flomaton instead - that won't happen again) and driving out in the middle of the freakin' hurricane to a nearby friend's house that was fully intact (stupid, i know - again, not my decision, and it won't happen again). we emerged from the house the next morning (with tropical storm force winds still whipping all around us) to find that nearly every tree (and there were lots of them - flomaton's pretty back-woods, folks) in the surrounding area was snapped. power and phones (including cell phones) were out for quite some time in that area, and trees were down everywhere, many of them on top of houses. back in mobile, however, things were fine. our power had only been out for about a day or so here, and my cell phone worked again. so, i guess most of my bad night last night was really just recalling everything that happened in september. regardless, i got very little sleep.

and now, here comes dennis to ruin my weekend and my research. maybe it will slow down and not be so close to land by sunday. i know that gives it time to strengthen, but i really need to get to port st. joe and collect samples this weekend. it's already been put off once because of the holiday. i really feel bad for gretchen. she's leaving august 5th to return to maine, and if we wait longer to collect samples, she won't have time to analyze all of them before her presentation. if it were just me, i would wait and get the hell out of town this weekend (and not just farther east on the florida coastline - i'd head inland). after ivan, i'm taking no more chances with hurricanes. chad and i already have a plan - we're going to stay with zach in camden (which isn't actually that far inland, but it's far enough for us not to have to worry about the worst of the storm). with the power being out this morning, i went to wal-mart and stocked up on batteries, touch lights, an oil lamp, and a portable fan, so we're totally prepared to be without power for a while (our stock of non-perishables is pretty good already). anyway, the power's back now, and i'm freaking out about the state of the upcoming weekend. i need a break from tropical activity, but it looks like dennis isn't going to cooperate and hit texas. damn.