Irene

This morning, the hurricane models jumped (for joy?) east of Topsail Beach. The area—inexplicably, I initially thought—had only voluntary evacuations taking place. However, I’m learning that North Carolinians are not prone to overreact or panic. They calmly discern and prepare, despite all the media hyperbole.

We’re still due to arrive Sunday afternoon. At first I thought this was utterly laughable, but now I’m thinking these folks may be onto something. The governor has been super careful not to instill panic, plus they reaaaaally want those last tourism dollars of the summer. So, avoiding dooms-day talk in the Carolinas makes sense. That said, Irene is a big fat lady, and her effects will be wide-ranging, even if a direct hit is avoided. Also, from what I understand, the worst of Irene will hit Topsail at high tide. Not good.

The Weather Channel and other news outlets have driven me batty with their sensationalist, apocalyptic predictions. That’s not to say New York, New Jersey, and Ocean City aren’t potentially screwed. They might be. And how many New Yorkers even have cars to evacuate with?

Meanwhile, as the storm trends slightly more east, my concern about our home has lessened. And by concern, I’m limiting it to “Should we buy a few gallons of water? And eat the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream in case we lose power?”

At any rate, the impact on our part of Maryland now looks pretty inconsequential, considering the models yesterday. Actually, we could use some rain. Our lawn looks like crap. Of course, our officials are telling us to not be stupid and PREPARE. My work sent out a checklist of things to do (and not do). I suppose there's a sense of fakeness about the whole thing. We've never had a tropical storm (which is what our neck of the woods will likely see), so we subconciously assume it's no big deal. I've heard rumors of folks classily cursing out clerks at Home Depot for running out of flashlights, but we haven't done much in terms of preparation. I don't want to stock up on food that will all spoil. Regardless, Chris made a Trader Joe's run, so we've got a pantry fully stocked of nonperishable stuff. We'll be fine!

In the meantime, I’ve sort of (no money yet exchanged but I’ve confirmed availability) lined up a respectable Plan B. If we can’t go to North Carolina, we hope to go to Central Virginia. A pretty winery there has some lovely suites (a must with Charlotte, as the kid goes to bed at 6:30) in the middle of wine country. It’s about 30 miles outside of Charlottesville, which in addition to the University of Virginia and Monticello, has a children’s museum that apparently even toddlers adore. Admission is four bucks. SOLD. Lots of tiny wineries surround Charlottesville, so there would be stuff for Mommy and Daddy to do, too. Yeah, the beach would be better, but a few days in Central Virginia would be nice, too.

Like I’ve said, we’ll make the best of it! To that end, this afternoon Chris and I are jump-starting the weekend with an early (gotta pick up the kiddo at some point) sushi happy hour to lend some festivity to what has been an extraordinarily stress-filled week. As we told each other, eventually the damn storm WILL PASS and we can stop guessing about its course.

Of course, when the town of Topsail will allow re-entry is a totally different story. I think we’ll be hanging out by the phone for a couple days to see if we stay or go. Hopefully not for so many days that we lose the opportunity to even go to Virginia!