Was That Hurricane Wilma That Passed, Or Is It Still Coming?

I don’t know where to start; the past couple of days have been harried.

Tuesday my friend Wes and I went to breakfast and, among other things, talked about existential philosophy. We laughed like fools because due to my facial deformity and lack of teeth, I can’t say the word “existentialist”. Of course this is not a word that comes up often in my vocabulary and I did not know that I’m unable to say it. So, I just substituted the word “heathen”. The conversation was a hoot for us but you’d have had to be there to see how funny it was.

Later, I went off with my friend Ken to transfer his Cadillac while his Rolls Royce is in the garage. He took me to lunch at Whiteway where he related a Christmas story he’s read recently; the story disappointed him because, even though it was written by a bishop, it contains no Christian element. Ken expected more from a bishop.

I only wrote a few lines in my next book Tuesday.

Wednesday, my friend Barbara took me to breakfast at Dave’s. She’s just returned from a trip to visit some Jewish/Christian friends up north. While she was there their house caught fire (unattended candles) and was saved from more extensive damage by the heroic actions of the family dog and Daniel, an 11-year-old son.

Barbara and I discussed weaknesses in my writing. I feel my work lacks power and contains only the most feeble witness for Christ; she reminded me that God’s strength is made perfect in weakness and that any good my writing does for readers must be through Christ’s power, not my own wittiness or ability.

Donald and a friend came over for lunch and I cooked them ramin noodles; Donald needed to see me about a bank transfer of funds to a needy person. While here, he upgraded my computer to a faster DSL.

His friend tells me that her teenaged daughter is reading a copy of Glog with evident enjoyment. That really pleases me.

As Donald left the driveway, Ginny pulled in. She’d come from the doctor’s office where she’d been fitted for those hearing aids; she should actually get them in a couple of weeks.

Elizabeth Taylor wears earrings that cost less than Ginny’s hearing aids!

Since overnight Hurricane Wilma streghtened from a tropical storm to a category five hurricane and is now the most powerful Atlantic storm on record, and since the projected landfall is in south Florida at the moment, Ginny & I began our usual hurricane drill. Although current projections put Jacksonville on the fringes, we go through the drill anyhow. The last couple of hurricane “fringes” have left us soggy, branch-covered and without electricity for weeks, so we prepare as though we’d be in the eyewall.

Not scared, just prudent.

We refilled her prescriptions for diabetes medicines; gassed up the car; surveyed our hurricane supplies; made sure we have mosquito repellent, etc.; backed up computer files and prepared to upload my current book projects to an out-of-state server; did all the laundry; and so forth.

We decided to lay in a few groceries to restock our normal supplies before the stores get too crowded. HA!

As we withdrew grocery money from the ATM, a man in a car wheeled into the bank parking lot and braked beside us. Immediately my hackles arose to Defcon Three Mode -- but there was no cause for alarm.

Although I did not recognize the man, it turned out that back in the late ’70 or early 80’s I’d written up some historical research for his brother and he recognized me as the writer who’d done the job. He asked me if I were still writing and when I told him about Glog and mentioned it was a book about a dinosaur, he became very animated and asked me how to order the book because his teen-age daughter is crazy about dinosaurs and he wants to buy a copy of Glog for her Christmas!

That really pleases me.

Hardly a cart to be found at the grocery store; apparently, we were not the only ones restocking hurricane supplies.

In the parking lot, I did help a lady start her broken-down car (actually I watched while someone who knew what he was doing started her car but I gave moral support) and I recovered a lost walking cane for an old crippled lady. And Ginny listened at length to the troubles of a guy confined to a wheelchair – but eventually we got our own shopping done and came home to follow the first rule of hurricane preparation:

First, Eat Up All The Ice Cream!

Chocolate.

We feel we deserved it.