Hi Bleu! News for you!

I'm going to be tactful here and say that something woke me up. I could be not tactful, after all, and say that this something has four big heavy paws and a nubby sort of tail and a squishy face, but that is casting blame and to be honest I'm not entirely sure I remember. I do like my Boxer's alarm-clock capabilities, I just wish it had been mentioned in the fucking documentation while the warranty was still good. But no; said documentation just said things like FEMALE and BRINDLE and NO WHITE which is true by Boxer standards, even though she has smidges on her toes and chin and a splotch on her chest. If it doesn't cover the whole paw, or spread out to cover the neck, it's standard marking and not notable white, which breeders and fanciers call 'flash.' Odd.

Gyah. I'm sure you all aren't interested in Riley ramble, but girl woke me up.

So. The hurricane. Frances is behaving like any other elderly Floridian: zigging and zagging around at approximately five miles an hour, causing massive destruction while not taking any hits itself, and generally annoying the shit out of everyone around. Hell, for a hurricane, this thing is old. And it's certainly worn out its welcome - if it had any besides the surfers. I'm having a difficult time calling it Frances, because that is such a harmless name. It makes me think of the old receptionist at the vet office. (Her name was Fran, I believe...) I want to name it something like Bloodfang or Big Nasty or Strong Bad.

StrongNoisy (ta-daa!) isn't going to be here until maybe 5 or 6pm; given how slow it's moving, I wouldn't be surprised if they meant that time tomorrow. Until then, things are already what I can expect to see: it's raining in fits and starts, and it's very windy out. I went out with Riley on her toilet break this morning, and while she sniffed and did what comes naturally, I stood on the deck and glared at the blowsy trees. It feels kinda cool, especially when the wind whooshes up from behind you and flattens your clothing against your back. It feels - to my sleep-hazy brain - like a stretched and empty canvas, taut and blank.

Am going to feed the dogs lightly today so that they don't need outside trips while this Thing is directly overhead.

News just said it's a cat. 1 right now, which is messy but not a killer... unless you're in a trailer or in your car or tied to a tree or something dumb like that. Or surfing. I heard that Jason The Surfer (dude in Pompano who nearly got arrested while surfing last night, told cops it's his constitutional right to surf) is alive and well. I hope so. It's a happy thing to see people beat the odds and nature like that. Homer Simpson Syndrome, certainly, (the stupid prevail and are rewarded) but still, a bit of good news.

One point of contention for me: they're talking about this thing's anger and fury and whatnot. Maybe I'm too much of a happy tree-hugging pagan, but I don't see this as fury. I just see it as nature doing its thing. They're also calling it female more often as time goes by - now they aren't saying "its," they're saying "hers." Odd.

It is a treasonous offense that I cannot find my copy of Hiaasen's Stormy Weather. Criminal. I'll need it when the winds are a-blowing later. Anyone else ever notice that every Mazzy Star song in existence has the exact same guitar line?

Who likes mud? Boo likes mud...

Riley and I just got in from a very muddy, messy, damp game that was sometimes fetch, sometimes keep-away, and sometimes tag.

After watching the news a while, I realized a very important fact: if I didn't do something to defuse the energy, I'd have a puppy explosion in the house sooner or later. So I rolled up my jeans, put the boots on, grabbed a canvas army shirt, and out we went.

She likes splashing around in puddles. So do I. And it is very puddley. My back yard is all flooded. Not enough for a pool raft, sadly, but enough to make sticks float. It's grey outside, but not dark - sort of an #EEEEEE grey. The trees are whipping around delightfully, and the swishy brushy rain is all swirling around in the wind too. My hair is wet and sticking to my head. My jeans need changing since they're soaked from the knees down. Weird, since the water's not that deep. Riley didn't want to come in. Apparently, the stick I broke by throwing at the AC pump (by mistake) was too much a temptation. So I lured her back with a different stick, dragged her inside, and toweled her off good. She loves the toweling almost as much as she likes getting wet in the first place.

Center of the storm is twenty or thirty miles away. We're so hardcore.

I think an important part of being Floridian is really truly hating the place the majority of the time, and then having really cool moments - like playing fetch with a muddy dog in a tropical storm hurricane Thing - that you wouldn't trade for anything.

My puddle, bitch.

Back yard: still not deep enough for a poolfloat. Good thing I didn't get one.

Front of the house: Possibly. We have bigass drainage ditches in front of the house, with a line of trees between them and the place itself (so it's difficult to see in) and those are full. So is the street. Everything from the bottom of the tree trunks, over the ditches (which are at least a foot deep) and across the street is covered with water.

In Florida when a hurricane hits in a very rainy season, you get frogs. LOTS and lots of frogs. Frogs by the dozen. By the score. I live in the goddamn swamp, people. If you listen not-so-carefully, just listen, you hear this creaky "Eeeuuuurrrrreeerrrrrr" that does not end. Ever. There's a territorial amphibian orgy going on out there. "Bitch, this be my puddle. Hel-lo, what's a nice set of warts doing in a ditch like this? You see my puddle? See what a nice place I got for you? C'mere. Let's get our spawn on."

I wonder where the two Deck Frogs are. I saw two little lifeless bodies. I hope that my two Deck Frogs are in fact six identical Deck Frogs - they're so good at eating the moths.

Newscasters are saying that we've still got to go through the eastern half of the storm - it's a depression and not a hurricane now, but still named. It's very quiet outside, and very wet, and very froggy, and floody, and we really don't need any more rain. But we'll have it.

We filled up the bathtub so that if the power stations went out, the toilet would still flush. I'm not saying it's not still a possibility, but it's much more likely that I will drop Mina The Weasel Cat into the water than we actually use it for flushing. Just sayin'.