Nobody Listens to Me

Despite my repeated warnings about tornadoes, sinkholes, pythons, alligators (and crocodiles), brain-eating amoebas, flesh-eating bacteria, bears, brown water and red tides and a zillion different species of disease carrying mosquitoes, folks still come down here voluntarily.

I went to the library today and the first three license plates I saw in the parking lot were from Minnesota, Colorado and Ontario.

And don't get me started on license plates from the Virgin Islands, Bahamas and Aruba. Seriously, Aruba? It's a small island. Why do you even own a car and why go to all the bother of transporting it here? Hertz is in the process of moving their "World Headquarters" down here from New Jersey. Just fly in and rent something. (I assume you're coming for the cooler weather. Or maybe to fulfill a death wish.)

And you, Bahamas. What are you even doing here? In terms of weather, sand, sun, beaches and warm water what do we have that you don't right out your own front door? Are you looking to die from something exotic? Because otherwise I fail to see the advantage we have over you. (Maybe you should do a swap with Colorado up there. You can ski in the snow and they can ski in the water.)

Well, as long as you're all down here, please make sure you go to the beach. And the nature preserves. And the concerts, plays and restaurants. Go boating, kayaking, paddle boarding. Mind the crocodiles while you golf. As long as you're willing to risk death, you might as well enjoy the paradise part while you're at it.

And please spend lots of money, too.

Thanks.

Another Day in Paradise

In addition to the cold (for us anyway) and the recurring torrential rains, our county is on the list for Governor Skeletor's emergency declaration after two cases of Zika virus (out of 9 or 10 statewide) were reported here. Not sure what that entails since we already have a very robust anti-mosquito program in our county although its current effectiveness may be negated by all the rain. It does mean that the disease may now spread locally since the most common transmission vector is for the mosquitoes to pick up the virus by biting an infected person and then transmit it by biting uninfected folk.

We are, of course, home to 80(!) different species of mosquitoes, 33 of which think people and/or their pets are tasty, of which 13 can spread diseases among us including Aedes aegyptii, which spreads Zika and Aedes albopictus, which could if it wanted to.

Also, the red tide's back—with a vengeance. Thanks to all the rain (see above), the Corps of Engineers has been releasing torrents of water from an overflowing Lake Okeechobee into our main river washing tons of farm runoff nutrients downstream and into the Gulf (note the concentration of red dots) to feed the algae. The algae then overbreed, their vast numbers causing the red color, using up the available oxygen in the water suffocating the fish. Wave action also causes some algal cells to go airborne where they can cause respiratory problems in people.

The good news is the water has probably been cold enough to discourage the brain eating amoeba and flesh eating bacteria.

Meanwhile, back on land, while avoiding the bears and wild hogs and pythons and nile monitor lizards and tegus, it might be wise to note the discovery of a crocodile in town just visiting the beach. Which, for the record, makes us the only area in the world to have both alligators and crocodiles wandering around.

But, what the heck, come on down for a visit. If the wildlife doesn't kill you a tornado or sinkhole just might!

A Night on the Town

Mittens, the little clone of her mom, stepped out last night. Technically, she fell out. She (or her sister or her mom) managed to tear a hole in the screen at the base of one of the dining room windows and she went through. I believe accidentally although I can't be sure. She likes climbing screens and can frequently be found hanging by her claws at human eye level, or higher, in the front foyer. (When I confront her and ask, "What are you doing?" she just looks over her shoulder at me and slowly climbs down backwards.)

The front door and several windows were open because Rainy Season is over, despite hanging on long enough past its scheduled end to completely ruin any chance of seeing the last Super Blood Moon Eclipse, and temperatures at night have dropped to the point where air conditioning is superfluous. It's nice to let real uncanned air in finally.

I didn't realize Mittens was outside until she tried to get back in the front door and her sister, who also didn't know didn't recognize her and started hissing and growling at her through the screen. Mittens was already scared at finding herself out in the world, her sister's reaction didn't help at all, and when I tried to open the front screen door she freaked out and ran (stopping just long enough to try jumping back in the window which didn't work).

After securing Paribanour back inside, I left the front screen door open and placed some food and water in the foyer to entice Mittens back in. I figured it took the better part of three hours before coming out of my closet after her adventure with the paper bag and it might take that long for her to calm down again.

I spent those three hours wandering around in the dark calling, "Here, kitty, kitty," knowing full well the futility. She is completely unequipped to deal with the world. The most she's ever seen out the windows are birds and squirrels. She has no concept of dogs, opossums, hawks, alligators, coyotes or cars. I hoped she would stay on our property and hide in the nearest underbrush and, if that's what she did, she did it well because I couldn't find her.

Jasmine and Paribanour, meanwhile, were acting very tense and alert. They knew something was wrong. In the end, they started staring out the glass doors into the lanai and when I turned on the light there was Mittens . . . who ran again when the lights came on.

So I moved the food and water from the front foyer to the lanai.

Five minutes later Mittens knocked on the front door to come in. (She does that. The other cats, when they're in the foyer, just gaze longingly through the side window hoping to catch a human's attention when they want in. Mittens has learned to knock.)

At first she was a little skittish and the others a bit standoffish. She was still excited and had, I suppose, picked up a bunch of outdoor smells which unnerved the other two. Eventually everyone got over it and I was able to tell my brother a humorous story when he got home.

All the windows will remain closed until repairs are effected.

A Delicious Weekend of Neurotoxins

So it turns out tilefish is very tasty: mild, sweet, firm and flaky. Goes well with home-made mango salsa on a bed of jasmine rice, salad on the side. Or an ear of buttered sweet corn. Can be baked, broiled or fried.

It is also loaded with mercury. Right up there with swordfish.

Some of the sites I checked said limit to one serving per month. Others said don't touch it. All of them said absolutely not for children or pregnant (or potentially pregnant) women. Surprisingly, the official Florida government guide which breaks down fish contamination risks by river, lake and coastal zone by named species and even includes various types of puffer fish (fugu) doesn't so much as mention tilefish, let alone list any warning.

I maybe should have checked those sites before indulging.

As it is, my brother and I are neither children nor female and we eat so little fish as a rule that our cumulative mercury levels are most likely quite low. Any degradation in cognitive functions is just age-related. Probably. Still, I sealed up most of the fillets and stuffed them in the freezer so we can space out our consumption. I figure the risks are low enough and the fish is tasty enough to not warrant throwing them away.

On the bright side, it's raining mangoes, a new half-dozen tomatoes ripen almost every day and the peppers are getting thick. And they're all free-range organic so they counteract any effects from the fish.

Right?

The Clockwork Calendar

The weather folks announced Rainy Season is scheduled to begin this week. So far the clouds have rolled in on schedule every afternoon along with occasional thunder but no actual rain, yet.

In anticipation, the builders not only put up the under-roof on the new house across the way last week, but also managed to nail down the tar paper covering and install the windows so the interior is mostly waterproof now (although there are no doors either on the house or garage). The interior framing is installed as well but I haven't seen anyone around in close to a week now.

Meanwhile, while we're waiting for the rain:

There are butterflies everywhere. Mostly sulphurs and zebras of various shades of black and yellow. I saw a beautiful copper colored one this morning, like a small, dark Monarch, that blended in well with the dead leaves.

We have several buckets set up along the front walkway, three or four with tomatoes and a couple with peppers. We picked a couple of cherry tomatoes already and there's a nice bell pepper that'll be ready in a day or two. Others are ripening and more flowers are blooming every day. I've already chopped up a couple of ripe mangoes and there are more turning yellow-red. We have several green ones my brother brought in but I don't know if they fell or if he just picked them unripe. They're starting to soften so I'll cut them up and see if they're edible as is or if I have to cook them. So far this year, they're all on the smallish side but, if the rains do come as predicted, they could still grow more.

The bucket of sticks in water by the front door, which is just one of several scattered along the side of the house, has come to life after a couple of years and  seems to be blossoming into frangipani. As a matter of fact, they all are. The bougainvillea is in full bloom as is the desert rose and a dozen or so lilies between the house and the walkway. And the new coconut palm and banana tree have both outgrown their pots. (The banana's easy but the coconut will have to be placed far enough from where people and cars normally go so falling fruit doesn't kill or injure someone or damage a vehicle.)

The only downside right now is that the clouds have brought humidity to go with the heat and so we've had to close up the house again after a couple of glorious weeks and turn on the A/C.

Update: Right after posting this the clouds rolled in, the lightning struck and thunder roared and the rain came pelting down in sheets so thick you can't see the road out front. Rainy Season, right on time.

Signs of Spring

The mango tree has blossomed, is still blossoming, produced so many blossoms we caught birds nibbling on them and yet the tree is still full of little mango fruits.

The jasmine is blossoming and the warm night air, clear and calm and full of bright, sharp, glittering stars smells like a Persian garden.

The green parrots are back, as are the ibis, the hawks and the vultures. And the blacksnake. And the toads which have been clinging to the glass doors of the lanai and driving the cats crazy with frustration.

All of the doors and windows have been open for over a month now, at least the ones with screens to keep the bugs out and the cats in. Somehow, the occasional lizard still manages to find its way in, though.

The bulldozer arrived bright and early and spent three hours scraping the topsoil off half the open field across the road in preparation for someone building a house there.

There's been an active For Sale sign on that field for a few months now. I can't tell if someone bought the whole field and intends to build on half of it or if only half of it sold. I'm sure it's zoned for two lots. In either case, a house on that site will severely cramp available parking for next Hallowe'en. But that's still several seasons (Spring, High, Summer, Rainy and Fall, at least) away for now.

(And a Couple More of) The Many Ways to Die in Paradise

Earlier in the week it was all about being struck by lightning while strolling on the beach.

(Surfing with Death)

(Death)

But you can also go down to the beach and get infected by flesh eating bacteria. At least ten people have died so far this year from flesh eating bacteria. They (the bacteria, that is) live in the warm water and enter the body through open sores or wounds. Or you can eat tainted shellfish. And if your immune system isn't perfect, the death rate can be up to 50%.

Or you could stay out of the water, watch what you eat, and only go to the beach on sunny, cloudless days. In which case, an airplane will land on you. They do it all the time.

(One of) The Many Ways To Die in Paradise

We're not quite Australia when it comes to killing off our residents and visitors, but we're not bad at it either.

One way we do it is with free-range electricity. While we don't get a lot of people that way in absolute numbers, we are the best in the nation when it comes to surprise, unsolicited (non-judicial) electrocutions.

Last week, three people were struck by one bolt of lightning on one of our barrier islands. An older guy, his teenage niece and her teenage boyfriend. The uncle apparently took the bolt directly to his head and, rather unsurprisingly, died instantly. The same bolt then jumped to the young man burning a hole in his chest and temporarily killing him, too. (Rescue workers, and his girlfriend were eventually able to revive him but he'd been out for almost an hour and, although he is now in the hospital and expected to live, the doctors are pretty much hinting that brain damage is a given.) The young woman escaped physical damage but, even with counseling, the psychological scars and probable PTSD may never go away.

They'd gone out strolling on the beach when it was clear but the clouds rolled in fast and they were heading back to shelter when they were struck.

Further Blurring the Distinction Between Here and There

It was a slightly less humid than normal evening last night, so when my brother went out to the bar to watch his Red Sox play (the local TV only carries their games regularly during Spring Training when they play right across the river, besides it's a good excuse to get out for a while) he let the cats out onto the foyer. Mittens wasn't interested but Jasmine and Paribanour took up the invitation.

An hour or so later, having put food in their dishes, I opened the door to collect them only to find both cats hyper-intensely poking at the base of the wall. I thought at first I might have to take another lizard away from them (all three of them had found one in my room a few days ago, sans tail (no idea if that was their doing), causing me to lock them out when it disappeared under the desk where I couldn't find it until I caught Jasmine with a tailless lizard corpse after I suspect it tried to get out of my room on its own) but I was wrong.

They had cornered a baby snake.

It couldn't have been more than a foot long and looked more like a really energetic worm. How it got inside? The same way the lizards do, I'm sure, probably even easier without legs sticking out. Why it came in FSM only knows. I confess to dancing out of the way when it wriggled too close; my excuse is I was barefoot.

I had to physically toss the cats back in the house (Jasmine twice) to get them to leave the poor thing alone and by the time I succeeded it had managed to hide itself off in some nook or cranny and I couldn't find it again. If it's smart it will figure out how to get back out in the garden where it belongs.

A Midsummer Night's Light Show

When I returned home yesterday evening the sky was overcast (we're back in a cycle of clear, bright mornings and rainy afternoons/evenings) so I settled in to watch the Rays lose another baseball game and didn't think about the night sky until I went to take the trash out before going to bed (about 1:30 a.m.).

The clouds near us had all gone away and the nearly full Moon was so bright it turned the sky a dark pale blue. Despite the glare, Mars was still visible just to the west and Saturn just to the east of the Moon. It was too bright to use the telescope on them, though.

However, the best part was much closer to home. Although the sky overhead was clear there was a huge arc of cumulus clouds along the horizon from south to west, all illuminated by moonglow. In addition, both ends of the arc were lit up by lightning. I couldn't really see the detail off to the west, only occasional flashes, but the thunder cell to the south was continuously active with streaks and bursts of light chasing across and around the clouds, often behind but sometimes with lightning bolts in front arcing across the sky and looking like nothing so much as an animation of nerve impulses racing through a brain.

There was no breeze and the clouds were far enough away (about 50 miles, or just south of Marco Island. I checked the weather radar later) that no thunder could be heard. Just a silent, unending, living light show under the Moon and planets and motionless palms.

I stood there for a good half hour just enjoying this awesome world.

Infills, Outtakes and a Successful Tantrum

They laid in the metal guide rails for the sidewalk concrete this morning.

They started to do it yesterday but my brother chased them away (I was out at the time) when they called in a private tree trimming service (which contracts to the city) to butcher the live oak. Despite being able to run the loader/grader last week without any interference from the tree, somebody decided it was suddenly in the way and ordered it cut back. The ASPLUNDH clowns managed to take one major branch down before my brother knew they were there. They cut it off a good 20 feet back from the path of the proposed sidewalk and were getting ready to hack off another, higher, one (and therefore less in the way, even theoretically) when he stopped them.

They claimed they had to cut it back to the power pole line but had no answer when my brother demanded to know why they hadn't, therefor, touched the palm tree that fairly abuts the sidewalk right-of-way. He told them they were full of shit and that he was going to file a complaint. All of them, tree butchers and sidewalk layers alike, were packed up and gone in the time it took him to go into the house, get his phone and come back outside.

This morning, 7 a.m., the sidewalk guys were back, laying out the guide rails, snapping them together end-to-end, spiking them into place and leveling them. And very carefully not stepping off the right-of-way onto our property.

When they were done, a guy with a mini-front loader came down and began hauling dirt from a pile they had deposited in the vacant field across the street. The rigid and straightened rails didn't always touch the ground and there were gaps and low points all along the way that needed to be topped up or else the concrete would (slowly) flow all over the place. It took about ten trips and, for the record, the loader never left the street pavement, except for one pass, after all the dirt was deposited, in order to level out the fill inside the rails. It looks nice.

We sincerely hope this bunch passes on the warning to the crew that comes next to pour the concrete.

Meanwhile, they've moved across our road and started to scrape Neighbor Mike's place.

Miscellanea, Garden Variety

My brother brought home a huge semi-ripe papaya yesterday. It was a gift. It's sitting on the kitchen counter on the theory and expectation that it, like mangoes, will continue to ripen on its own. When he deems it ready, he intends to plant the seeds. I have no idea what his criteria are, but if he manages it, we'll have fresh papaya.

Meanwhile, our inconsistent lawn mowing has paid off in the sprouting of three new mango trees. Unfortunately, they are either directly under the current mango or off in the property line and need to be transplanted. Neighbor Mike, who ran out and bought his own mango based on how good ours taste only to discover he had gotten a different, and not nearly as sweet, species, has already claimed one sapling. My brother intends to give one of the others away. The third will be transplanted to an appropriate spot.

Meanwhile, the coconut palm has had a good year. A full dozen and a half have dropped so far with at least that many more still tucked up under the fronds. Of those that have fallen maybe seven are basically dead. Most of the rest slosh when shaken, meaning they are full of milk, and will be harvested for both milk and meat as soon as I can find where my brother hid the machete. The remaining two have sprouted. One will be planted as soon as we can find an open space far enough away from power lines so the electric crews wont feel threatened and trim it to death. The other will be given away.

The orange tree has grown at least a foot since planting and its top has opened up. My brother continues to feed and water it.

The last of the cherry tomatoes and sweet peppers are long gone. The banana tree is still in its tub and needs to be planted.

If we ever decide to go full Fruitarian, we could be pretty well self-sufficient. (Ain't gonna happen. My brother's a full-bore carnivore and I'll never survive without bacon.)

Another Monster For the Menagerie

Behold the "Pink Meanie."

(Attaching a radio transponder. To a jelly fish!)

It's a jelly fish. A jelly fish large enough to be tagged. They grow over 3 feet in diameter with tentacles over 100 feet long. And they're suddenly all throughout our coastal water. Again.

(Pink Meanie way too close to shore)

(Supposedly yummy Blue Moons)

Hundreds of them have been spotted in the Gulf. Apparently, they "blossom" in response to the presence in the water of their favorite food, the much smaller but even more stingier "Blue Moon" jelly which they eat literally by the dozens at a time.

There's been a bloom of Blue Moons this summer and so the Pink Meanies, which otherwise exist as inconspicuous bottom feeding polyps, have responded for the first time in about five years.

Between these guys and the lion fish, I'm surprised we get any tourists at all.

A Visit From the Critterman

Last night the cats started acting weirder than usual. At first they were just tearing around the house with too much energy, racing each other (mom included) across the living room, sliding on the coffee table, over the couch, onto the recliner by way of the TV tray, into the kitchen and onto the window sill (or all the way up to the curtain rods). And then back again.

Suddenly, it became very still and quiet. When I looked around from where I was doing dishes I saw the kids trying to climb the front of the bookcase and mama all the way up on top, over six feet up where she had never gone before, and threatening one of Mom's ceramics. She backed as far away from the edge as she could and, although I could just reach her, I couldn't get the leverage to haul her down. There was a dull, rhythmic thumping behind her which I assumed was her tail against the wall.

I called my brother, who is taller, to help and when he came out of his room, which shares that wall, he took one look at Jasmine and said, "So that's what all the noise is about." He was wrong.

After we hauled the cat down, the noise continued. Jasmine, incensed at being forcibly removed from her discovery leapt from a side table to a small but slightly taller curio stand (knocking over a vaguely disturbing articulated painted wooden wizard/clown "doll" of unknown provenance) to the top of the old TV onto the bookcase, thus explaining how she got there the first time. Something was in the wall and she had dibs.

My brother, after yelling at all the cats sufficiently to keep them off the bookcase, spent the night listening to whatever it was skittering around.

First thing this morning he called an animal removal guy who came out, crawled into our attic and removed a smallish 'possum that had fallen inside the wall and couldn't climb out on its own. He also found and blocked up the hole that had allowed the 'possum to get into the attic in the first place although he warned that his fix will not prevent raccoons from gaining entry if they want because they have those nimble, tricksy fingers and can literally pull the patch apart.

The 'possum is now on its way to the local (semi-)wilderness where it will be set free to live happily away from people and near to the pythons and panthers and black bears and alligators and tegus and whatever else is hiding out there.

Good luck, little fella!

What We Have Here Is a Failure to Mitigate

(A Fairly Typical Juncture of Two Canals)

I have noticed on certain trips about town, when crossing over some of our numerous canals, that the water level on one side (the inland, or "upstream," side specifically although they are all pretty far from either the river or the gulf) is significantly higher than the other. One in particular is so high it completely covers the culverts meaning any increase in water level is going to flood that area.

(Hmmm . . . Potentially Blockage Inducing Flotsam, There)

My assumption is the openings under the bridges I am crossing have been blocked by flotsam of unknown provenance. I do not know if the people living in the immediate vicinity of these choke points have noticed or notified the city. I do know I have seen no one doing anything about it.

The water is already up to the lip of the seawall in many places.

And look! It's raining. Again.

The Ongoing Daily Apocalypse

Seems a rather large sinkhole has opened up near Disney World swallowing a largish building or two and effectively destroying an entire resort complex.

(It is an ex-resort)

No injuries reported, so that's good and the resort has given spending money to guests who lost their clothes and wallets and such in the collapse.

Meanwhile, closer to home, a Texas company is seeking permits to drill fracking wells in a housing development next to protected panther habitat near the Everglades, a process that will use tens of thousands of gallons of water. Never mind the toxic chemicals used to break up the rock, that water has to come from somewhere. The state Department of Environmental Protection notes that "heavy ground water pumping, [and] diversion of natural water flow routes . . . may accelerate sinkhole formation." What could possibly go wrong?

(Locals protest fracking as the Google Street View car rolls by)

Meanwhile, a twelve-year-old boy over toward Lake Okeechobee has contracted brain-eating amoebae, probably from swimming in a canal full of warm fresh (but contaminated) water. The brain-eating amoeba is rare, but of the couple hundred known cases there has only ever been one survivor.

Meanwhile, over on the east coast, a large bloom of slimy, fluorescent green algae is closing the St. Lucie and Indian rivers. Officials are warning locals not to even touch the water.

Just another day in Paradise.

Kind of puts the pythons and bears and lion fish and tegus and 48 species of mosquitoes in perspective doesn't it?

In the Fullness of Time

This weekend my brother planted the orange tree I gave him.

For Christmas.

The poor thing has been sitting in its pot either in the lanai or out in the back yard since December 26. Who knows how long it sat in the nursery before that. (Best guess: Not nearly as long.)

At first he wanted to wait for the weather to warm up, which made sense. It would do no good to plant it if there was a chance of a freeze. Then, for a long time after any possibility of a freeze had passed, I don't know what the excuse was except the redneck tendency to never quite finish (or start) any project. At first, he said he didn't know where he wanted to put it. Later it was too hot to work outside (frequently true), then too rainy (sometimes true). Then he needed to buy fertilizer first. That took a month or so to get around to. Then he discovered irrigation pipes tangled in the roots of the (stunted) lemon tree which he originally intended to dig up and replace with the orange.

Yesterday, as I was looking out the sliding door to the lanai, I noticed the orange tree was no longer parked next to the lemon but was back in the far corner of our property past the smaller of our coconut palms. And it was in the ground. And while I was looking my brother took a gallon of water out to it. Knowing his green thumb, it will probably thrive. Of course, the tools he used are still stuck in the ground next to the tree and will be until they are eventually needed somewhere else.

I hadn't said aloud that I would never by him another plant again, but maybe he sensed it anyway.

And maybe I will reconsider.

Miscellania

The kittens (a term not to be used much longer considering their sizes) insist on pushing their toys under doors then doing various gymnastic moves in vain attempts to retrieve them. Considering the typical Florida open plan layout of this house, I am surprised how many closed doors there actually are around here (my room, my bathroom, the front closet, the laundry room,  . . .). No matter how many times I rescue the catnip mouse or stuffed fish and place them in the middle of the living room, the cats inevitably end up playing right next to a door, with predictable results. The next round of toys will have to be bigger than the gap between floor and door.

Paribanour has darkened up some and her chipmunk stripe has blended in to the point of near invisibility. It's now noticeable primarily as a glossy line down her back as opposed to the matte gray of the rest of her fur. She has, however, developed a raccoon ring tail in the meantime.

There's some sort of bug I have yet to see that bites (or stings) without warning leaving a swollen spot similar to a mosquito bite that turns into a red patch the size of a thumbnail and lasts the better part of a week itching like hell the entire time. It's gotten me four times now, three of them either through or under clothing.

Our sweet red peppers and cherry tomatoes are coming along nicely although my brother tends to pick the tomatoes before they're fully ripe in an effort to keep local varmints from getting at them. It works but we're missing out on some juicy ripeness as a result.

Speaking of cherries (the real kind), the cats love them. They're perfect for batting around and playing kitten football. Even in season and on sale, they're expensive enough down here for me to take them away and rewash them. At least the tooth and claw marks are merely indentations and not punctures. The show no interest in the grapes or tomatoes even though they all share space on the counter.

Our mango tree is generating a second crop for us. The new mangoes are limited to the eastern quadrant of the tree but there are maybe a couple dozen decent size ripening up there. Neighbor Mike's mango tree is full. He likes ours better. When we first gave him some of ours a few years ago, he enjoyed them so much he ran right out and bought his own tree, but it's a different species he doesn't think is as sweet.

Public Service Scare Tactics

Our local public radio station is trying to hawk their (totally useful and really a good idea for when the power goes out) wind-up radio receivers, for which one has to make a hefty donation to the station, by using the line "you know our weather can change from moment to moment without any warning so be prepared."

Uh, no.

This is the most predictable weather I've ever seen (outside of San Diego where they just post "sunny and 68F" and leave it up 360 days a year). The seven day forecasts are accurate. Rainy Season begins within 48 hours of its scheduled start every year. If they say clouds will roll in during the afternoon, the clouds obligingly stay away until after lunch. It may not always be pleasant what with the heat and humidity and general muggy swampiness, but it's virtually never surprising.

Even our worst weather, the stuff for which you'll actually need a wind-up radio, is identified so far in advance that it can be individually named and tracked by computer.

So, yes, get the radio. Be prepared. Stock up. Plan for the worst case. But if you don't, if something goes wrong, no one will believe you if you claim you were surprised.

Stood Up By Chantal

So, Tropical Storm Chantal collapsed before hitting the Bahamas and is now just a "wave."

All the projected tracks had it well east of us, over the east coast and Miami, so we were never too concerned. As it is, yesterday was beautiful as was most of this morning. A very heavy band of dark cumulus rolled in from the southeast just before noon full of threats and promises but continued right on past without fulfilling any of them beyond a little thunder and a quick shower.

Which is just as well since, with all the regular rain we've been getting lately, the canals are pretty well full and the ground is saturated. It's not going to take much to put us back into a flood warning and maybe actual flooding. As it is, the water table is so high each new storm forces the burrowing owls up and out of their dens and onto the handy little crucifixes put up by the protective society.