Since I haven't posted any photos of baby birds for a while

A blog about baby animals. Via Louis.

Hmmm... shortly after that post the sky collapsed, every tree in the neighborhood fell down, and three days later the power came back on.

Ten minutes ago, maybe. I was standing outside when whooping and clapping came through open windows. Then I saw the street light on. We did a hurricane round-up at the paper, thanks to about three generators and some warm beer. I wrote the parts about Ted's Hideaway (neighborhood bar, not to be confused with Ted the homeless man) and the pile-up/photo op on Alton Road. And the closing bit. It's still hard to get gasoline, and there's a boil-water order, but all in all the hurricane experience was not bad at all. I quite enjoyed the candle light, and once the storm passed the weather was gorgeous.

Obligatory hurricane post

First, look at this! The New Times becomes a media empire. My first feature is due tomorrow, but it's very not done. Wilma has made this slightly less of the tragedy it could have been. I can't sleep. It hasn't started raining yet, just gusty and wonderful. I took a stroll around, but everything was rustling and whipping, and South Beach alone feels creepy, so I went home and swept, looked at the swath of red at the NOAA web site, finished re-reading more young adult literature.

Did receiving an e-mail about this event make anyone else feel like D for D has turned into a couture t-shirt parlour? Not that I wasn't pleased to see John Arceci in the NY Times Magazine.

Bad week

It started when I drove into a raccoon, which writhed in pain in the street for a minute before righting itself and limping away, in not dying leaving me with a profound sadness, waking up the next morning thinking of it waking up, with its wounds that much more swollen, its ability to feed itself and go about its normal business of trashcan investigation dreadfully thwarted... I felt like garbage. Then, as if in retaliation, the next evening some crackhead emerged from the cemetery at NE 18th Street, broke into my car, and stole my dirty underwear and a pair of five year-old running shoes. Just the little vent window but still. Then, today, already a bad day, a day when I was brimming with tears for no reason from morning on, I got fucking rear-ended at a stoplight by some British matron, whose husband informed me that they would rather not pay through their insurance company, leaving me with a bit of a dilemma. Be kind and let them? But they're rich, given their address, so why not make them pay and probably get a fucking rental car in the process, since I was just trying to go home and change a skirt I spilled on before an interview, and didn't ask to get rear-ended by a Silver Jeep Cherokee, womanned by Brit who lives on the most exclusive private island in Biscayne Bay and calls me "darling." The problem is I can't deal with any of this without bursting into tears, and you can imagine how my car looks right now. Fucking hell. Seeking a well-appointed cave.

Sunday

The problem with Florida is that various of its most recently-inebriated inhabitants must awake each morning to celestial blue skies and swaying palm trees and tender breezes that gently ply the curls of one's hair, an environment whose beguiling charms taunt the recent drunk who chooses to spend her day in an airless cave watching Deadwood on a laptop, who feels like she must apologize to the weather as to why she simply cannot exert herself to attend the beach that day, and who feels pangs of both guilt and despondency until the skies open and the rains pour and her activities are acknowledged as acceptable by nature's whims, which kindly render her street impassable and puddled.