Okay, today was possibly one of my weirdest working experiences (and I've had many weird ones). I was working in a law office in Indian River County, and the windows were being boarded up while we were working. It just kept getting darker and darker, as each panel of plywood went up. We did not linger, everybody wanted to get the hell outta Dodge and go home and start getting ready for the weekend.

Frances has not turned and so far seems disinclined to do so. News coverage is fixated on when and where the eye comes ashore, but that really doesn't mean much - the feeder bands extend hundreds of miles in front of it and things get ugly long before landfall. I'm concerned about when we will actually start feeling the storm, because I want to bug out ahead of it and hopefully not end up in the middle of the first feeder bands and hellacious traffic heading up 75.

I'm thinking if I can get everything done tonight and tomorrow I can leave early on Friday. I don't even care if nobody's home at Girl's when I get there, I can kill time at the yarn shop (what a sacrifice) or whatever, I just don't want to be in the panic-traffic.

Right now they're saying 100 mph winds at my house, and insane, torrential rainfall -and that's not for an hour or two like Charley, that's for a day. And I'm inland, in the "safe" area, the people on the coast, wherever the hell it finally decides to go, are going to get slammed with 140 mph and it will linger. This is not another Charley. This is another Andrew. It's so large and so wide and so strong, it really doesn't matter where the eye goes, unless it changes direction drastically in the next 24 hours, Florida is going to get slammed, it's just a question of degree, bad or really really freaking bad. We'll probably still feel it as a borderline tropical storm in Tallahassee Sunday night, if it stays on its current course.

So Girlchild is going to think I'm moving in - I'm bringing important papers, my laptop, the digital camera, and as much of the more expensive contents of the fridge as I can manage, like meat and such, because the odds are I will NOT have power this time and will just have to come home and throw it all out. I hope it will pass quickly, and I can come home Monday to survey the damage, and I hope there won't be much damage, but I can't assume that I'll be lucky twice in a row. I'd rather prepare and have the storm change course and miss us than assume it won't be that bad here and get surprised.

I am very worried about the cats, but honestly they are probably as safe here as anywhere. I will leave my closet door open so they can retreat to a windowless protected space full of soft things to hide under. They have enough good sense to hide under the furniture at loud noises, so unlike the dog, they won't run toward a breaking window to check it out. In times of crisis they normally gather under my bed, which is as safe a place as any. It's where I'd go if I could fit.

Okay, local weather says the wind will start getting bad here on Friday. See, that's what I mean, they're talking "landfall 2 p.m. Saturday but that's the eye, the storm extends far beyond the eye. So yeah, I'll be up and outta here early Friday.