Uninvited . . .

I have always been an unabashed enthusiast when it comes to Mother Nature's wrath: I like thunderstorms and rain, I love it when the sky gets dark enough to turn the streetlights on in the daytime, and the trees whip around in the wind. But, I have been on the wrong side of that wrath too, so I've learned to respect it. I've never been as frightened as I was my first year in college, when NOLA was threatened by Hurricane Georges seven years before Katrina would practically destroy the city. Weather is fun to watch from the safety of your home, when there's no danger in it. No so much when you could lose that home because of it.

To those of you readers battening down the hatches, waiting for Hurricane Earl, or worse, facing evacuation, my thoughts are with you.