In the Midst of Fay

When I left off yesterday I had been for a good run and was anticipating the arrival of Fay. Well, she's here - passing through the area on her westward travels. The 'eye' of the storm passed south of us during the night so now we are in the heavier part of the storm. This is where we get the heavy rain, steady wind and strong gusts. So far so good - we still have electricity, which I am taking advantage of by cooking and posting.

I went to a friends house yesterday afternoon and we played cards, and I learned that my 12 year old, while seeming to not know what she's doing, is actually quite a good player of cards! She won - repeatedly. Good thing no money was involved. She would agonize over every draw and discard and truly seemed clueless - she had a fistful of cards and just when a couple of us were poised to play our final cards and win, her turn would come and she would draw a card and suddenly lay them all out for a win. It was uncanny!

After a few hours of cards/movie watching my daughter stayed the night there and I came home to see what my 16 year old was up to. As I went to get in my car I saw that one of my front tires looked ominously low. Great. Now I have to stop to air up a tire. Gas pumps are covered so only blowing rain will get you. Not so with the air machine...no coverage at all. #!%*!#!!. I got soaked. When I got home my daughter was busy making plans to go out with friends - plans that were quickly quashed by myself and the other parents, due to the worsening storm. So we hung out for the evening and went off to bed semi-early.

Good thing we got some sleep because by about 3 a.m. we were awakened by the storm in all it's glory. We have lots of trees around here so the wind gusting through the trees and the rain hammering on the roof kept waking us, along with occasional sirens.

By 7 a.m. we quit trying to sleep and did the next best thing - made coffee and some breakfast and sat on the balcony to watch the storm. Our balcony is semi-enclosed and screened so it was perfect for enjoying the view without getting wet. We were discussing birds and how much it sucks to be clinging to a tree during a storm, when I looked over and saw something running along the ground. Turned out to be a rabbit. What!!!??? What possessed a rabbit to get out in this weather? I always assume that animals have some internal guiding system that tells them to fill up before an approaching storm. Instincts that are guided by barometric pressure or some such thing. Apparently I'm wrong. Or this was just one dumb rabbit.

Enough for now. Elder daughter has gone off to get the sleep she missed last night, and so long as it's going to be dark and rainy I may as well get a nap in too!