Hurricane Preparedness

So, with Ike threatening us in South Florida, and appearing on a direct course to us all day on Friday, I started getting nervous and went on a hurricane-run to Target. Since all the stores were crowded, I figured I'd have better luck at Target.

Over $374.00 later, I'm stocked up. Here is just a portion of what I bought. The Key is to buy stuff that you may actually use during the year, so that if it doesn't come, you don't have alot of useless food. I think I may have overdone it with the bread. I got lots of gatorade and T snacks and batteries. I think I dropped over 100.00 on stupid batteries alone. Those "D" ones are expensive! Luckily, the batteries, too, will probably be used during the year. It seems that every toy invented these days has "batteries not included" written on the box.

Meanwhile, I also picked up some things that I had "been meaning" to purchase, but always put off. A couple new, clean, coolers, a few blow -up mattresses, another battery-operated radio, you get the picture.

One of the main reasons I was freaking out is b/c my parents have "been meaning to fix" a window in their florida room that doesn't close all the way. They've been happily air conditioning their back yard for the past 3 years. Every time I'm there, I mention it, but they keep forgetting to do anything about it. What's worse, there's no shutter on the window. Just old awning (beat up and rendered useless from Hurricane Wilma) that can't close anyway due to an a/c in the wall under it. Nice. Nothing like a cat 4 barrelling down on us, and they can't even close their damn window.

So, I have an appointment with Felipe, a window man, this morning at their house. I'm ordering up two new heavily-tinted hurricane windows to hopefully be installed this monday or tuesday. They'll also cart away the stupid awning.



This morning, I wake up to a much better Cone of Misery. Its moved!!!!! We'll watch it for the next few days for a shift, but its looking good for us. If nothing else, I guess we can thank Ike for the new windows.