Monday Night Musings: Hurricane Edition

Hurricanes can be extremely noisy...especially during the night when the rain slams into the windows...it sounds like a hail storm that goes on and on and on...which drives me just a tad bit CRAZY.

Hurricanes can produce boredom while "hunkered down"...when boredom hits, playing a rousing game of Uno with new-found friends can be pretty entertaining....

That game of Uno can be even MORE entertaining when one of the players is totally color blind..."No, Steve - that's not green. It's blue. You need to play the OTHER green." "Steve - you played a red card - and you need to play a yellow card." Even Steve was laughing before the game was over....

Hurricanes produce heroes...the wonderful staff here at the Comfort Inn in Wesley Chapel, FL have bent over backwards in hospitality...providing us home-cooked meals every night as their way of saying "thank you" to the American Red Cross...We're spoilt.

Hurricanes produce tornadoes...and tonight was spent in the hotel hallway taking shelter. That same wonderful staff at the Comfort Inn rushed into action when the sirens went off, insuring that EVERY SINGLE GUEST was accounted for and safe in the hallway. That's kinda' ironic - the hotel staff "rescuing" the American Red Cross volunteers. It's normally the other way around.

Hurricanes make everything wet...including feet. Nothing is more blissful than peeling off wet shoes and socks and putting on a comfortable pair of warm, fuzzy slippers that one has packed away for just such an occassion.

Hurricanes aren't predictable...so flexibility and patience is required when planning how to provide support and relief to the American people. When is our job here in Tampa done? When do we go to the Gulf coast? Is it even SAFE to travel right now to the Gulf coast? Questions for which I don't have the answers for right now...I am dependent on the administrators at Headquarters, and have to wait for their decisions....

Hurricanes bring out Jim Cantore from The Weather Channel...and if it's one thing I've learned, it's that you do NOT want to see Jim Cantore standing in your neighborhood, doing a live-feed on TV. If you DO see him? You're screwed. Really.

Monday night musings...typed on an iPad in a cozy little motel room in a small town outside of Tampa...while the rain beats on my window...while wearing my comfy, cozy, WARM slippers.....

Peace.