Hurricane Season

Someone at the gym this morning smelled distinctly like maple syrup. I'm smelling syrup, so suffice to say no, I haven't drowned in Erin's wake, although the flooded roads did make me 15 minutes late for work--quite a feat considering my drive is 2.7 miles, but I am still largely clueless when it comes to the roads here, hence the delay. Yesterday we spent the hours of 9-3 "team-building" at work. With no internet and no network on account of the storm, I shot the shit with my boss and co-workers, listened to a bunch of music and hung posters in my office, played too much minesweeper and hearts, and, when I tired of that, I even wrote you all a lovely blog post, only to lose it all when the power went out briefly.

I also tried my first Whataburger, as that's where the only employee brave enough to face the rain was headed for lunch. It's one of those fast-food chains people rave about for no good reason. Sure one meal tasting of sawdust may be "fresher" and "more authentic"-seeming than another, but in the end it all still tastes like sawdust. My co-workers were so excited for me to experience this Southern phenomenon and kept asking how I felt about my grilled chicken sandwich. "Kind of disgusted with myself," I thought, but "oh, it's good" came out. I found it hard to expound on the lie while holding a lukewarm mass of fat that was dripping mayonnaise juice.

Anyway, the Erin damage in our area was minimal, but Dean is still en route. Over lunch today my co-workers were trading hurricane stories from Rita and Katrina. No one had suffered any losses, save for one girl who'll never get back the 18 hours she spent in the car evacuating to Austin (three hours away), only to turn on the TV upon arrival and see pictures of a road in her neighborhood where traffic cones arranged before she left still had yet to blow over. In fact, thankfully most of them actually enjoyed the time they spent riding out the storm, relaying stories of days spent drinking and playing cards, talking and eating.

I'm still operating under 'it won't happen to me' the pretense. We don't live in an evacuation area and I don't have any friends or family who have ever been impacted by severe weather. That said, I met with a guy from the Surviving Katrina and Rita organization today about an event we're hosting with them, and it was quite a wake up call for someone like me who is new to the area. While I'm certainly educating myself about his project at work, I prefer to remain blissfully unaware at home, save for vague 'we should plan on heading somewhere inland' emergency plans. So don't worry, wish me luck, and if worst comes to worst, send booze and food.