Charley has decided to not follow the predicted path, or strength, and is coming ashore right where my parents, brother, and sister have homes. They are all safe, but send some strong~roof~ma in the direction of their homes please.

Hi all. I am in Orlando and staring Charley in the face. As it stands right now, the eye is scheduled to go directly over my house around 11:00 tonight (eastern time). Any spare safe-hurricane- and non-freaked- kitty-ma would be greatly appreciated. Fortunately, we rent our house, have renter's insurance, and are not in a flood zone, so I'm optimistic. I'm just terrified of tornadoes (I blame too many viewings of The Wizard of Oz as a child.)

With luck, I can post the results in the morning.

I will be continuing in the black for the foreseeable future. I miss hanging here muchly. The upside is that work is busy in a good way. For the time being, the work pc is my portal to b.org, so I'm a bit stuck.

Best vibes to the wind-tossed, and to all and sundry.

We're heading out as soon as the dog-sitter gets here, about 10:30 MT. When I come back on, I'll have Nilly stories!

Happy hurricane-less Monday!

Well, we made it through. A tree next to our house happily fell into our yard and not the house. Our screened porch lost a single panel of screen. Others in our neighborhood weren't nearly as lucky. Large chunks of Orlando are a a mess. 100-year old oaks and 50-foot pines and palms are scattered like matchsticks.

We haven't had power since Friday night, and it could be a week before we do. (Disclaimer: Half our neighborhood does have power, so we may get it restored today.) I'm typing this from work, which has power, but no AC. (NOT complaining)

To answer sarameg's in-thread question, we left Baltimore the week before Isabel. It must be karma.

Love to all, and I'm very happy Nilly is enjoying her tour.

Stopping by to note that I finally have power (but half of Daytona Beach still doesn't). Finally convinced my parents to leave their manufactured home (no damage to it, but no power until Wednesday night at the best) and get into the air conditioning. It's definitely been an interesting time.

LEXINE!

Check your e-mail in about two minutes. One of my attorneys came through with some information for you.

Posted this in Bitches, but what the hey. I passed my final exam. I am now a Chartered Financial Analyst Charterholder, and once again I have rendered my brand spanking new business cards obsolete within the first three months of receiving them.

And with any luck that's the last one for a few years at least.

I'm going to be mostly really dark grey for the next week and a half or so. I'll still be checking email, but won't be on the board much, if at all.