I'd rather be there. Not knowing what is happening at home is driving me crazy. Now I may be here through Tuesday morning before this lazy bitch Frances decides to move her humongous ass out of here. My family and friends and office colleagues and parish and even the lawyers I can't stand are all directly in the storm's path - this one is very, very personal for me. I have so many people to worry about personally, never mind the general Holy Shit aspect of a storm this big, bad and slow moving. And of course I should still worry about myself and Girlchild and her friends, since we are not dodging this, we're right on the path up here, though it won't be as mind-blowingly bad here as it will be back home. Charley was a breeze in comparison, he whipped through here like Lance Armstrong. Frances flunked gym class. Charley did billions in damage while small and moving fast. I can't even wrap my mind around what Frances is doing while lumbering through.

My son had power and cell service up 'til about an hour and a half ago, he called to let me know that things weren't that bad there yet, he and his friends are hunkered in the Bunker dining very well on the remains of my freezer - shrimp, two tuna steaks, crab cakes - and said he'd go check out my house as soon as he could afterward. Of course, he most likely won't be able to call me afterward because service will be down. I was kicking myself all day -I should have gone home. It's not like I came here to "be safe" since I planned to come anyway, and now the impending storm has intruded on what was to be a relaxed, fun visit. Even my plan to find supplies to bring back is screwed since everybody here has grabbed all the camping lanterns and such. I hope to find a spare grill and charcoal for Boy, and I hope my grill is still where I left it (safely tucked into the corner of the backyard where it rode out Charley unscathed). I'm off to Home Depot bright and early tomorrow, to stock up for here and then bring stuff home.

This is a demented summer. Somehow I don't think you people up north ever live with these particular adventures. It's great here in late fall and early spring, but hurricane season lasts a long time, and this year was our turn to get beat up.