Hatches are battened. Since we're only getting Tropical Storm-level weather, we left the shutters off. And opened the windows!

This is the first big storm the Zweeble remembers. He's mostly worried we'll lose power and not be able to watch TV or play video games. (Speaking of which, I need to charge the DS.)

Whilst taping down the lid to the water softener, Scott found a frog colony--7-8 amphibian foot soldiers! We also found a ton of brown widow nests in the outside garbage can we no longer use, so there's a chore for after the storm.

And now I have to mediate a game of Munchkin with the boys.

The rain can stop any time now. I'm tired of feeling damp all the time. I did, however, finally buy a damn umbrella, so I won't get soaked again this week.

Scott has it worse--the a/c in the Yaris died earlier this year, and we haven't had the resources to get it fixed (this may change shortly). So he's driving with the windows down when it's sunny, but when its raining it's either windows down and the car and driver get soaked, or the windows up and you're driving in a sauna.

(There's a tiny baby frog in my morning glory vines! So cute ... from a distance, anyway!)

Going into week three, the novelty of VPK has worn off for Z, and we are in "Why can't I stay home and watch Pokemon every day?" territory again. This would bother me more if he wasn't always excited after school to tell me what a great day he had. His work has been really good--there are a lot of "color the pictures that start with a 'b' sound" kind of worksheets, and so far he's only missed one picture on one worksheet. That annoyed him a lot. I don't really care how many he gets wrong, as long as he's doing his work, but clearly he has inherited my perfectionism. :)

School for Scott has actually been really good. He's been a lot more cheerful and enthusiastic about ... well, things in general. Getting out and interacting with other adults, using his brain, and working toward a goal he's interested in have all been a good thing, and things that have been missing from his life for a long time. It's nice to see him feeling good and basically happy. The next two years are going to be austere and probably tough, but so far it's worth it. Not bad for a plan we came up with as we made the bed one day without really thinking it through.

Things are going okay for me, too, so far. Soon I will be inundated with grading, but right now it's not bad. Torchwood finale this week, and Doctor Who has re-started. Lots of books on my shelf--thank you, interlibrary loan!--and story ideas percolating away.

Now if it would stop raining so I could maybe dry out and do the weedeating ...

So it looks like we won't be getting the lawn mowed this weekend, either.

Reading my FL is like watching the Weather Channel, but without Jim Cantore. :)

To add to the giant pile o' weather posts, I currently have wind, blue skies, and temps in the 60s. Before you get too jealous (or not, as I know doggiesushi, at least, is like a malamute and gets all frisky in cold weather), let me add that my day has also included a tired and moody toddler. His weather report would read "Tantrums and meltdowns for the majority of the day, with occasional patches of decent behavior, followed by a severe freakout just before naptime. DO NOT VENTURE INTO THE BEDROOM DURING NAPTIME! This is the eye of the storm and conditions may deteriorate without warning!"

---

On the other hand, I just bundled our phone, internet, and TV. I also upgraded our TV so that we'll have a DVR and BBC America! Plus a bunch of new kids' channels, one of which I think is all the preschool Nickelodeon shows without commercials. I hope it is. The Zweeb is pretty fond of Max and Ruby*, but I hate the commercials.

So now we just wait for Scott to authorize it and the Dish dudes to install it, and I can tape stuff again! Yay!


*Speaking of Max and Ruby, I know I am not alone when I wonder where the heck their parents are--seriously, they live in a house and you never see their parents. You see their Grandmother, who lives in another house, and you see other adults, but never Max and Ruby's parents. I thought it was a little weird when they decorated the Christmas tree without parents, but yesterday it got just ridiculous because Ruby was putting Max to bed for the night--with no parents! So now I'm constructing elaborate backstories in my head about how Mom and Dad died--they're rabbits, so maybe it was hunting season--and the kids are keeping it a secret to stay out of foster care. On my more cynical days, when Ruby is being seriously bossy, I imagine she killed them and the whole show is actually a re-make of that Twilight Zone episode where the little boy sends people he doesn't like to the cornfield, only Ruby turns them into her dolls ... I know, I'm going to hell. Or the cornfield!

Lookit me, I'm subtropical!

Kyle, on the other hand, just has to be different and go hit Canada. Whatever, dude.

It's the storm that won't die!

Seriously, we've been getting rain and wind from this thing since Monday. The wind's not too terrible, and the rain isn't as bad for us as for other places, but today part of the street was under water. And we just got through with another rain squall.

The frogs are cheeping, cheeping ... the eternal cheep of the damnable amphibians, plotting and scheming ...

But first:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, takarosa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Amazingly, we still have power! Even more amazingly, we still have satellite TV!

Fay never got to hurricane status, so it's just a really strong tropical storm instead of a weak hurricane. It came in south of us and is moving slowly, so it's dumping a lot of rain everywhere. The winds aren't as bad as they could be, but they're still pretty strong. Apparently the worst of the weather is yet to come for us and points northward.

Still, barely worth the hurricane shutters. Though the three of us were so tired after all the prep work last night that we all slept like rocks until 8, when my mother called. (Well, two rocks and, for a couple of hours, a squirmy rock fish, but still.)

So everything is closed, and there's no way I want to drive in the mess outside, anyway, so ... I have no idea what we're going to do today. I feel like I've been going and going lately without a break, so I think I will just not do anything. Play with the kid, read, bum around. Then get back to the grind tomorrow.

So, the storm is kinda disorganized and lopsided at the moment, and as you look at the radar, it really looks like it should just cross the bottom of the state and head up the east coast. Which it, apparently, won't do. I'm trying to ignore the what if scenarios on the news and just watch the weather updates. But we've definitely got the impending doom weather going on outside.

All right, back to work.

The lawn has been mown, and the weeds have been eaten. I did this whilst singing selections from Jesus Christ, Superstar and the musical episode of Buffy. The JC Superstar started when I was weedeating--every time I do this, lizards and bugs and frogs jump, scamper, skitter, and otherwise run for their lives. (It's very "Man has come to the forest, Bambi, panic!") Which led to me singing, "I see blood and destruction!" And so, from there. I'm not sure how that led to Buffy, though.

Oy. It is August in Florida, which means humidity to the point of having to breathe through your mouth to get air, followed by the occasional cool, wet breeze. Of course, all the cool breezes happened when I was on the lawn mower generating my own breeze, but that's life.

I am now slightly heat-exhausted. I have to see if I can get my @#$^()^&$%%$#%I&^&%$#^!!! printer working again, and file, and grocery shop, so I'd best get hydrated and moving.

Oh, and lest we forget, I give you ... the reason I did all that yard work today, instead of in two parts.

We have Tropical Storm Erin looking to make landfall in Texas, and Tropical Storm Dean making its way toward the Gulf, probably becoming a hurricane tomorrow or Friday.

Woo.

It doesn't look like Dean will hit us, but you never know.

This is the second time they've used Erin as a storm name. Shortly after we moved here the first time, there was an Erin--I think a hurricane? Very low-level one if it was--and it dropped a lot of rain, to the point where places had to close.

So, yeah, Erin, what's up with the two storms? I think you need to do more yoga or something. :)