Waiting for Idalia
“I think that the world should be full of cats and full of rain, that's all, just cats and rain, rain and cats, very nice, good night.” ―Charles Bukowski
I’m upstairs in my office, my desk is at one of the windows facing the street, and I’m watching one of my trees shiver in the wind. I’m drinking a pint of strong beer and taking hits from an Elf Bar a friend gave to me. I swore I would never suck on the robocock but here I am, sipping an IPA and sucking a robotic elf phallus.
Hurricane Idalia is one or two hours south of me, somewhere in Georgia beneath Savannah. It’s scheduled to arrive in South Carolina in a few hours, right as the sun sets and darkness rolls over our swampy marshland. Florida got hit pretty bad already, with a lot of flooding at the bend and, a big storm surge. But that’s Florida, they always get fucked by hurricanes. I haven’t made it down there yet, but I plan on visiting in the future. I have a few friends, some got evacuated, and others were passed over by the storm.
I grew up in California. We don’t have hurricanes in California. We had earthquakes, fires, and riots, that’s the California way. Earthquakes can be scary but I always remember them being exciting. My mother is terrified of earthquakes. She was a teenager living in the center of Bucharest during the 1977 earthquake that nearly destroyed the city and killed 1,700 people. Parts of the building she lived in, a building I visited on my latest trip, collapsed onto the street while she was taking a shower. Unfortunately for her, she decided to move our family from one earthquake-prone area to another famous for earthshaking, Los Angeles. I have vivid memories of the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The pool in our condo cracked and fires blazed around the Los Angeles area. To this day I remember that the quake happened on Monday, Martin Luther King Day, because we were off from school and I was disappointed that it happened on an off day.
Earthquakes are brutal, they happen suddenly without warning, but thankfully they only last for a couple of seconds. California builds wide instead of high and all buildings are up to code for earthquake protection, for the most part. The simple, 2-story max wooden construction of most homes makes the risk minimal. Hurricanes on the other hand are a bit more terrifying. They last long, bring flooding, collapsed trees, tornadoes, lightning, downed power lines, and other calamities that I don’t even want to think about right now.
Anyway, this IPA is strong and I’m getting a buzz, I think I’m going to have another one and call it, don’t want to be drunk in case I have to evacuate. Or maybe I do, shit, might be exciting. The power cycled off already. I know that once it gets here in earnest, we are going to lose power for a while. The grid down here has not kept up with the population increase and demand, so we lose power even during minor thunderstorms, let alone hurricane winds. Might now post notes for a while if that’s the case.
Once I finish this I’m going to go downstairs, pour another beer, and read Suttree. Thanks to my wife I’ve gotten myself into a McCarthy kick so I started Suttree a few days ago. A wonderful novel with, a different style than Blood Meridian, and a different vibe, but still one of McCarthy's best. Once I finish I’ll write a review, then move on to some indy novels I have waiting to be read.
Stay safe my friends! I hope that I don’t fly away in the wind and the rain.