The memory of 9-11, although fading, is still too fresh to let the day pass unemotionally. I guess in some small way the Terrorists did succeed... they succeeded in making us realize we're vulnerable. But perhaps this "realization" , as costly as it was (much more so to some than others), was something we needed to be aware of. Thinking of all the old cliche's; "Once burned...", "Fool me once, etc." We are certainly AWARE now. But I also wonder if they considered THE PRICE their homeland would have to pay for their actions... or did it matter. I don't know. People who place no value on human life are hard to figure...

Then there's the trio; Charley, Frances, and now Ivan. What's going on here? We used to live in the Satellite Beach/Palm Bay/Melbourne, Florida area. Still have friends there. Can't imagine one state being hit so many times consecutively by hurricanes.

Sure, if you've lived in the South you've grown up with Hurricanes. Some are just big tropical storms and a good reason to get out of school when you're young. They'd let us off to go home and board up our houses. We were never really scared... in fact, I always thought it awesome to watch the sky turn that greenish yellow right before and then we would go out in the yard when the eye passed over.. it was errie calm, and then the winds would pick up again and we'd hustle inside. In New Orleans, it was Hurricane Party time! Some were scarier than others... with minimal flooding and loss of property. But with most, there was very little loss of life. And most people stayed. Few evacuated.

But I don't know... I think these days I might leave. However, I was talking to some friends a few days ago and they don't plan to. They've never evacuated before and don't plan to start now. As they said, "What can you do? We'll take the necessary precautions and ride it out. Hopefully we'll get lucky..." or something like that.

I sure hope this is the right decision.

So... life was simple... once.... a long time ago. What happened? Is it that we grew up? grew old? Would we do it different? Could we do it better? I doubt it.

What is, is... and we can handle it.

Looking over at our multiplicity of cats lying about, like aliens from another planet, their eyes stare right through me and say, quite sarcastically, "yeh, sure you can..."

and I have to laugh... because they're right. We fool ourselves a lot. But hey, if it works...

Night!

Rian