AUGUST 23, 2007
HURRICANE PARTY

You'd think the grey sky was falling during my jog yesterday morning. All the neighbors were nailing plywood to their windows, lining up at the grocery store, exiting with oceans of bottled water. I remembered Michael warning (more complaining) about this peculiar activity associated with Miami, and it looked inevitable that I would soon experience my first Florida hurricane. Everyone scurrying around like frightened mice I found quite amusing; after all, once you've survived an attack from 10 angry soldiers with no weapons to hand other than a brick – a force of nature doesn't seem so bad.

Nonetheless, Michael was busy tracking his burn notice (par for the course), so I decided to make sure his mother, Madeline, had a handle on the situation. I arrived at her house to find the windows already boarded up – a true hurricane veteran. I wondered if Michael had prepared his place. If his loft came crashing down, there wouldn't be much to miss...it's filled mostly with yogurt and dust. Madeline insisted that I partake in this seasonal activity (really, they do treat it something like Christmas) at my pad, but as I inspected her own preparations, I noticed a few advancements could be made.

I've done some barricading during house-to-house combat overseas, though mostly to weather small bombs and stray shrapnel, but figured this shouldn't be much different. I went into the yard and looked up at the trees, quickly calculating the angles and drop patterns if the trees were to fall, and also identified the weak areas of the house, reinforcing them with 2 X 4's. For a moment I took a step back and admired my work – 70% of the house was now covered. But why stop there? In high winds, debris can fall from anyplace and land anywhere. The neighbor's doghouse could quickly find itself smashed inside Madeline's kitchen.

As the skies grew darker, I finished barricading the house – which, admittedly, looked more like a bomb shelter. Madeline didn't seem to mind – I think she liked the company. After shutting ourselves inside, we turned on the news, and to our surprise – the hurricane had shifted course! There would be no strong winds, no torrential rains, no falling debris, no first Miami weather phenomenon for me. Feeling a tad disappointed, I went outside and noticed a small crowd of neighbors staring at Madeline's house. Had I gone overboard in my seasonal decorations?

I spent all of today de-boarding Madeline's place – and now the 6 o'clock news has just reported another hurricane is on the way...

Time to go trim the tree!