The crawler at the bottom of my tv screen says Orange County schools will indeed be in session tomorrow for the first day of school, but to stay tuned because the path of Tropical Storm/Hurricane Fay is unknown. So unsure they won't even commit to 100% chance of rain on any day next week. Those of you who don't live here in the Sunshine State might have a vague memory of an August not too far back when your news told of a huge hurricane crossing over the state of Florida. His name was Charley. He kicked ass and took names. And in fact it was almost 4 years ago to the day. I remember it well because my first baby started kindergarten that week. How's that for co-ink-i-dink, irony, symmetry? Whatever the hell it is, it's FREAKY!

Being native Floridians, hurricanes don't cause much panic around our house. We don't live in a coastal community. We usually just get rain, lots and lots of rain. Which around this time of year our yards usually need and soak up like sponges. That was until we met Charley. He was a horribly inconsiderate guest. A bastard if you will. He left us without power for 5 long, hot, muggy, nasty days. However, we were blessed, we had running clean water and many places close did have power. So now? Well, we at least bag up some of our own ice, fill some extra jugs of water and make sure we have fresh batteries when the warnings start.

Now, let's review... Breanna's first day of kindergarten was Monday, August 9th and Thursday the 12th we picked our kids up and were told to go home and hunker down. The kids were out of school for a week after the storm. It was like they had two first days of school. One big do over if you will. Then about 2 weeks later they closed the schools again for another hurricane. Her name was Frances. She pissed off a lot of people. She didn't have near the impact on our area as Charley, but she did successfully get our kids a few more rainy days of summer and more pop tarts than you can shake a stick at for breakfast.

So this year it's Brooke's turn to take that big step into the same teacher's kindergarten class. And there is once again an ugly storm out there headed our way. All I can say at this point is: Been there, done that.

8 comments:

We seem to do a similar thing, only with fires.

I hope it's not too bad.

August 17, 2008 at 2:32 PM  

We seem to do a similar thing, only with fires.

I hope it's not too bad.

August 17, 2008 at 2:32 PM  

Holy crap, for the first time in a year, I am glad to being living away from Orlando! LOL!!!

August 17, 2008 at 4:12 PM  

boy, I hope you'll be OK!

August 17, 2008 at 4:55 PM  

Dammit!!! Now I have all the pool crap to deal with this time around!!! Well at least no newborn to have to deal with this time!!! GOOD TIMES!!!!

August 17, 2008 at 6:22 PM  

You are singing to the choir sister.
Looks like we may all be spared this time though....
run Fay, run.

August 17, 2008 at 10:41 PM  

Losing power in the summer - SUCKS! Hope you are spared with the storm. Good luck on Kindergarten day.

August 18, 2008 at 12:40 PM  

I wasn't even taking this thing seriously until today when I had to DRIVE in it.

After 2004 with Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne and then Wilma in 2005 we sort of feel like seasoned vets to the whole Hurricane business. If they're not talking Cat 2 I change the channel.

Still, I'm sort of happy schools will (probably) be closed tomorrow since I'm taking Bug to the dentist. If the dentist closes I'm going to lose my head.

August 18, 2008 at 4:37 PM  

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