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Galveston has now issued a mandatory evacuation and the Coastal School Districts have cancelled classes for the rest of the week. They aren’t going to let anything slip past them this time, it seems. The grocery stores are all out of bottled water already. (I have a few empty containers here that I’m going to fill up.) They are also out of goodies like masking tape and batteries. As I said before, I’ve never been in Houston for a big hurricane – the extent of my planning originally was wondering if I had enough sock yarn to get me through the storm!

Of course, now I’m thinking about things that are much more important than that. I don’t know if we will evacuate; we’ll decide that in the next day or so. For now we need to stock up on supplies – especially after reading how our side of town had no electricity for two weeks back in 1983 after Hurricane Alicia. Hopefully, the systems have improved in the past 20 years, but just in case I want to be ready.

The Chronicle has a Rita blog set up already. The SciGuy is covering it also.

It is interesting for me to watch the school closings, since I’m a student now too. I wonder if my classes will be cancelled. We have our first Algebra test next Tuesday – what a birthday present! – and I wonder if it will be rescheduled if we don’t have class this Thursday. (I’ll study as if we are having it, since we have covered all but the very end of the material it is over.) We need to get through the storm first though – then we’ll worry about things like tests.

I had a physical therapy appointment yesterday, and while I was in the waiting room there was a soap opera on the TV. The older lady sitting across from me was watching the show as I read a magazine. The show was interrupted by a special report, and I stopped reading when I realized that they were announcing the voluntary evacuation plan for Galveston, which starts today. It seems that Hurricane Rita is heading our way.

The lady across from me looked at me with a look of true fear in her eyes as she asked me how far away we were from Galveston.

It was at that moment that I realized she must be one of the survivors of Katrina, waiting out the time before she can return home to New Orleans. Now another hurricane might be in her near future.

I told her that Galveston is about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes south on I-45 from where we were at, and that normally when a hurricane comes the northwest side of town just gets a lot of wind and rain.

She looked so sad.

I’m glad in a way that I was called back to the therapy session at that moment, because it dawned on me that while I have lived in Houston for most of 20 years now, I have only been here for one or two weak hurricanes. Every coastal town has a “big storm” that they measure things by – we have the hurricane that all but wiped out Galveston in 1900 (the church Mike & I were married in was a storm survivor), and then, most recently, there was Alicia. In 1983. Two years before I moved to Houston. By the time we moved here, people were still talking about that storm; not just the hurricane, but the tornados and flooding that it caused.

The more I think about it, the more nervous I get. So far, most of the models show it hitting just below Galveston on the coast, putting us on the “dirty side” (with all the water) of the storm. I’ve said for a year now that we are way past due for a big storm, and I’m afraid that our turn has finally come. It is going to be a long week…

(Charles has some great storm coverage, in case you want more details. And kudos to Galveston for having a system in place to allow people to register for bus transportation to get off the island, and for getting the ball rolling so early.)

I had a fleeting moment where I briefly considered doing something really, really evil. I mean … cruel. If I had done it, the person on the receiving end would have flipped out and then some. But I reigned myself in. I just couldn’t be that mean, no matter how much it was deserved. Very tempting, but no. I resisted in the end, and set everything right again.

Hopefully, by changing my path I have not upset the balance of karma in my life.

Do you ever have moments like that? I’m not alone in my sometimes wicked ways, am I?

I was offline Saturday night for a slumber party, and offline all day yesterday while I studied. About 48 hours later, I decided that I needed to check my e-mail and then check in on the main blogs before going back to my Algebra homework. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Jenn had her baby yesterday! (She was scheduled to be induced on Friday.)

Whoo hoo! Congratulations to Jenn and her newly expanded family! Yeah!!! What a precious little baby!

You know, with all the pregnant people that I know right now, someone needs to invent a “baby alert” system – where the pregnant person “announces” that the baby has arrived and we all get an e-mail or text message on our cell phones to let us know! (Of course someone would abuse it to send us spam within a week, but it is still a great idea!)

I’ve looked at Etsy for weeks now, but never actually signed up. I realized today that I had probably missed the chance to get my name, since it is a pretty common name. Imagine my surprise when I discovered “christine” was still available! Wheee! Now I can sell crafty goods online someday at christine.etsy.com. Fabulous!

I almost feel inspired to break out the soap-making goodies and whip out a few loaves. Some Strawberry or some “Relaxing” (vanilla/jasmine/fir/musk blend) would be really good right about now! Or maybe some cards. Or some knitting. Or yarn. Oh, the things I could make! (Now if I just had time…)