We're Still Here

This Labor Day weekend, Spike and I thought it might be fun to head down to New York City to see some friends - even if our friends didn't really have that much advance notice. The point of the weekend was to get out of town. I had a four day weekend and Spike had a 3 1/2 days off. Perfect for traveling, right? Wrong. Hurricane Earl had to make his appearance along the eastern seaboard, but it wasn't really an appearance north of Virginia and the Carolinas. But the Coast Guard wanted its people to stick close to home in case anything happened. So we stayed put.

The thing is, I knew we weren't going to be hit by this hurricane. I heard on the news last night that hurricanes hit Maine about once every 50-100 years. There is a downside to this, though. People freak out when they hear about it coming even if the forecast says that it will brush by. We had a tropical storm warning! And do you know what we got? A little rain Friday night. The streets were damp on Saturday morning, but we never heard wind gusts or the pelting of rain against windows. You know what would have happened in Texas if the weather had been like this? Nothing! Now I realize that the experiences and circumstances are different here, but most people wouldn't cancel big plans if the forecast was predicting "a brush with the weakened storm." That's like people putting their life on hold in Houston because there's something going on in South Padre Island or Brownsville. Ridiculous!

So yes, we're still here. In both senses of the word. We're still alive after a short rain on Friday night. We're also still at home trying to figure out how to spend the rest of this long weekend. Maybe we'll head down to New Hampshire where there's no sales tax or take a walk around town and enjoy the (still) beautiful weather.