Rut Roh!

The good news is Hurricane Hanna is not expected to make landfall in South Florida this week. The bad news is, Tropical Storm Ike is expected to be a hurricane by Saturday and make landfall somewhere around South Florida. On Sunday. Which is Olivia's birthday and when we're scheduled to have a pool party. Last night, I sat Olivia down and discussed the possibility of having to postpone her party for one week - until the following Sunday. The news was nothing short of devastating and Earth shattering to an almost 8 year old girl. I know that she understands the meaning of postpone and certainly can compute the concept but you'd think we just told her she can't have a party, her puppy just died and I'll never let her wear knee-high socks again.
This is the peak of hurricane season and we've really been quite lucky in the past to have never had to cancel or postpone her birthday due to a hurricane or even inclement weather. Even though I've rolled the dice every year for the past 7 years and held her parties outdoors.

In addition to Hanna and Ike, Josephine is right behind although so far, it looks like it's going to stay out into the Atlantic and not threaten any US Coastlines.

Everyone in South Florida sort of gets this overwhelming feeling of exhaustion around this time of year. We're tired of our weathermen (and women), we're tired of schools closing, we're tired of standing in line at Publix for water and ice and we're really sick of "near misses" and "lucking out". That's not to say that we're not generally grateful when a storm ignores us, it's just that we always seem to be within the "Cone of Uncertainty" (or as I like to call it - the "Cone of Death") and have to prepare. Not only is it unbearably hot right now but there's always Hurricane Drama. No wonder why we're always so cranky.