Happy hurricane season to me!

June 1st, the unofficial start of summer in Florida. Oh sure, you guys up north have your Memorial Day, but down here hurricane season is it. Last night on ABC they had a 2-hour primetime special on hurricane season, and my official county hurricane survival guide came in the mail. Then to top it off, this morning the sky is dark dark dark and there are very loud ominous rumblings of thunder. Welcome to summer! Time of thunderstorms, humidity, torrential downpours and storm tracking.

I used to really love summer. I loved the light, I loved the warmth, I loved looking at the beatiful flowers and the green of the trees. I loved hanging out in pub beer gardens in the evening. But now I don't. It's not that I still don't love all of the above, but now I live in the topsy turvy world where summer is crap and winter is fabulous. Though personally I prefer spring because winter does get a bit too chilly for me, even in S. Fla. Yes, I'm a wimp! Living down here also makes it hard to take some of those online personality quizes ("are you a summer person or a winter person?"), because do I answer that I prefer winter and have the computer think I am a person that likes the cold, fires, skiing, staying in out of the dark, or do I pretend that I still live in a normal northern hemisphere climate and pretend that I still love summer. See the difficulties I face???

So, back to hurricanes. This year I desperately hope that we won't have any. I'm still storm weary from last year, and still haven't had either my roof or my hurricane shutters fixed. The hurricane shutter company has been out to the house, and has supposedly ordered the replacement parts, but I haven't heard from them in a couple of months. I can't even get a roofing company to give me a quote, seeing as the roof doesn't actually leak. OK, OK, maybe if I'd called 20 companies instead of just 4 I might have had some action by now, but I'm being lazy about it. The last house on my street that has had a tarp for a roof since Wilma hit us in October is finally getting re-roofed now, so probably the roofing companies will just start on the "cosmetic only" repairs about a week before the next storm hits!

But I've already done some shopping. I've topped up the battery stash. I've got another battery operated fan, so now I have a total of 5. I bought another flashlight that can double as a nightlight. I got a second radio for Christmas, which is hand cranked. And I bought a medium-sized tarp and some bungee cords. Pretty good going so far, even if I do say so myself. I still need baby wipes (very useful when you've got no water supply as happened last year, and no a/c), water, and food. Another high powered LED worklight would be cool. And it would be great to have a hot water supply and some air conditioning, but that's going to have to wait until next year.

I'm kind of scared about what to do if a storm hits while I'm pregnant, because of course I'm going to be pregnant this year, dammit!! Or while I have babies. But I hope that friends and neighbors will help me get the house ready, and I will hightail it out of town. That would definitely be a situation where having a husband would help, as currently it takes me a minimum of 4-6 hard hard sweaty hours to get the house ready. Usually I have to do it over two nights if I can because I just get too exhausted to do it in one go. I sometimes think that if I end up childless I'll move back to a condo, because hurricanes are too much to cope with on your own in a single family house. But lets hope it never comes to that, eh?