When I lived in the Midwest, I really had no good idea of how large hurricanes were. So, for those of you trying to understand the monstrousness of Katrina, here’s some observations.
Nashville is about eight hours from the Gulf. Lots of people from this area go down there on vacation, hence its nickname, The Redneck Riviera. We’re also about ten hours by car from New Orleans.
If you look at a weather map, you’ll see that the outer clouds associated with Katrina have already reached us and the eye is not yet on land. It will be a tropical storm by the time it reaches us on Tuesday, but still, here we are, eight hours inland and we’re being warned about sustained winds of 30-49 miles an hour with gusts up to 64.
Most of our weather comes in from the west or the southwest, so it’s always weird when Mrs. Wigglebottom and I are out walking to watch the clouds roll in from the southeast, as they’re doing today. It’s just a visual warning that things in the atmosphere are not normal.
And, of course, things continue to go from bad to worse all along the gulf coast, from New Orleans east and it’s going to be very bad for folks down there for a long time.
I wish I had something witty to say about the whole situation, but there’s really nothing to be said about it at all, except that it doesn’t seem like there’s any way this isn’t going to be an unimaginable nightmare and I’m glued to the coverage, like a gaper at a car wreck.
Tiny Cat Pants 
Thanks for reassuring me that my feelings of confusion about the simultaneous distance and nearness to this storm. This is at least the third hurricane I have experienced in Nashville, and I still do not have my head wrapped around the it because we are so, sadly, landlocked. I am used to tornados and secretly enjoyed the one that passed by about 5 miles south of my place a few summers ago, but I don’t get how to understand TROPICAL storms here.
Hi Aunt B. I don’t have a comment about this post. I just wanted to tell you that I’ve missed TCP. I didn’t realize that until the professor suggested I check out your merchandising and your last post was Why Blog. That was awesome.
Back to the mechandising. It seems odd that I can buy a Tiny Cat Pants dog t-shirt. It seems a little odd all by itself. Then there’s the fact that cat pants, of any size, are unavailable. I mean, I’m enjoying your blog, I look over to the right and see a link that says “Buy Tiny Cat Pants”, so I click it and … no tiny cat pants. What’s up with that?
You don’t think it’s funny that you can’t actually buy Tiny Cat Pants?
Okay, then, just me. But I swear, every time I think about that, I start to laugh so hard I think I’m going to drown in my own spittle.
Aunt B., I have consulted with Sally Hasset, my honorary cat neice, and she wanted to make it clear that she, as a “cat fashionista extraordnaire,” she prefers tiny cat raincoats to tiny cat pants in this sort of weather. ;-)