Another Friday Night Ramble

I’m sitting on the floor of my den listening to the wind whistle outside. I’m flipping channels back and forth between Friday Night Smackdown and some college football game. I am trying to pretend there I don’t have people I care about living in Houston right in Ike’s path. I am glad that it didn’t intensify back up to a category four because no one in that city seemed to be taking this thing serious enough for me. It still might be a rough one next week for everyone over there. The categories of hurricanes are based only on the wind. Gustav taught us that you can still get quite a punch from a storm that size. Plus, we are about 300 miles away from the storm and the wind is still gusting outside. This storm is going to take awhile to come ashore and its going to suck for a long time after it does.

I was watching the news earlier and there were still people in Galveston waiting to ride out the storm. All these people are crazy. There shouldn’t be anyone near the coast of Texas at all. I know legally the government can’t force you to leave your home but someone should have made everyone near the coast evacuate. What good is freedom when you drown? Some people don’t learn to respect water until it’s too late.

I am really worn down from all this hurricane stuff. Because of my job, I not only have to deal with it personally. It’s also consuming me professionally too. After hurricanes is when people in non profits and social services seriously think about changing their career path. There are lots of people who need help and the stress to help them is made worse by all the people trying to get over. It can be difficult trying to figure out what group everyone belongs to. I offered to screen everybody because my bullshit meter is a fine tuned machine but I was told that wouldn’t be ethical. It might not be ethical but I would have had fun doing it.

On the way home I stopped to get some gas before the price goes sky high once the refineries get flooded. When I drove up all the working cats were out there sharing an after work beer. All of my neighbors were out there. I felt bad about that. There was a time when a community beer sharing session couldn’t start without me. My boy was right. I m becoming a suburban cat trapped in the city. In the past a revelation about myself like that would have made me sit out there for an hour and drink with them. I left though because their bottles were looking low and the new man always has to buy the next round. This wasn’t a pay week so I didn’t have time to buy those big bellies any drinks.

I guess I will go home and do my usual blogging and watching Youtube. I am going to find some old school Slick Rick videos. I don’t feel like doing anything else. I went to the sports bar with my cousin and closest comrade yesterday but you can’t hang around him too long when storms are in the Gulf of Mexico because he keeps looking up the street for water. There is only so much of that you can take. I am going to watch a little football this weekend and rest up for Monday when the madness starts again. A vacation has to be coming soon.