The waiting is the hardest part

As Bluemeadow said in comments below:

We're sitting here in Sugar Land as well, just not boarded up. Maybe we'll bring out the tape in a bit. This waiting for the inevitable is so trying for the soul.

Yes, it is. Blue skies this morning, muggy, but even the birds and bugs seem to know something is coming. Birds are quiet, squirrels are absent, bugs seem to be all trying to get indoors.

Or maybe I'm just projecting. Never ridden out a hurricane, so I don't know what it's like. Been through a serious thunderstorm on Lake Texoma, in a rickety garage apartment; that's as close as I've come. I'm still more scared of a tornado, which you don't really prepare for, but just hide from (and pray it skips your house). No doubt I'll change my tune, as Grandmere Mimi keeps telling me it's no picnic (yes, I'm working my way through the comments from below).

So my thanks for the best wishes from Tena and Geor3ge and Grandmere Mimi and Bluemeadow (who is probably closer to the coast than I am, but hopefully not on low ground. We're hopeful that nothing less than a tropical storm perched right over our neighborhood will bring the water up high enough to cause flooding here. We'll see. On the other hands, we do have something like 16 trees on this average sized residential lot, so, again...we'll see.)

My thanks for the concerns, spoken and unspoken. Let's not forget those cleaning up from Gustav, and all those in this storm's path. Right now, my worst memory from Rita is losing power for three days. Maybe this won't be any worse than that....

Stay tuned.

Two prayers from Iona:

I awake this morning
in the presence
of the holy angels of God.
May heaven open wide before me
Above me and around me
That I may see
the Christ of my love
And his sunlit company
In all the things of earth this day.

Safeguard your faithful people
in the sanctuary of your love O God.
Shelter them this night
in the shelter of the saints.
God to enfold them
God to surround them
God in their watching
God in their hoping
God in their sleeping
God in their ever-living souls.

Update: Well, this is a bit of comfort:

Winds in the Houston metro area will increase to tropical storm force--39 mph--by about 4 pm CDT today, and remain that strong for about 24 hours. Category 1 hurricane force winds of about 75-85 mph will affect the city for about an 8-hour period from midnight to 8 am on Saturday. People in well-built homes will suffer only minor damage, but mobile homes and homes not build to code will suffer significant damage. The extremely long duration of the hurricane force winds will cause much greater damage than is typical for a hurricane of this strength.

The big concern with this storm seems to be the storm surge, but Chez Rmj is much too far inland for that. Pray for those on the coasts, though, of Texas and Louisiana. This may hit the upper Texas coast, but it has very long arms.