Monday Monday

A cloudy morning started us off today and it sort of matched the mood of my heart. It's funny how it changes a little like the tide lately.

I have chosen with no regret, and seem to be finding happiness wherever I look. And yet still there are things I wish had been different, that sometimes make me a little sad.

I miss the Garden, wonder what is happening along the fence, if the rest of the mums have begun to bloom yet, and if the cosmos ever really started blooming, and if any of them turned out to be seashell shaped.

I have a few roots I would like to extract still, particularly some irises only recently planted there. One or two of them promising to be purple. And maybe a little red dianthus. So I will be heading to Harwich one carefully chosen day soon and I'll be sure to bring the camera along, to show you what I find.


I had to pull over at Rock Harbor when I got a look at the sky over the bay as I headed for work this morning. I'm sorry I didn't notice until I was back behind the wheel and driving what the sky behind me looked like...it was pretty amazing looking. Sorry to tease with just the mention.

Hey, this really bugs me. The property you see here used to be a nice wild patch of woods, all trees and wildflowers. And then last year they cleared most of the lot and built this McMansion. It happens WAY too often on Cape Cod lately.

That was enough of an abomination, a crime against nature, to me...and then this week, they took down another tree or two and hoisted this great banner, which is spotlight-illuminated by night and day. It's a pretty residential area and anyway, I bet its not zoned for nightlit billboards...so add disregard for the law to raping the land, needless power consumption and reshaping the world in one's self-important image. Yep, sounds like an apt advertisement for the candidates.

Oh, I'm getting all itchy thinking about it. Here, let's chill with a bachelor button instead.


As you can see, I got more painting done in the living room this evening. It took a little while to sketch in the crow. I wanted to make sure it looked just right before doing anything with the permanance of black paint.

I'm pretty happy with how its looking right now.

Remember way back on September 13th, when I was painting the bedroom with Cape Cod Gray and tapped the end of the roller on my palm?

I did sort of like the pattern that made...especially as my mind began to transform it into some kind of stylized cave painting version of the sun. And when Patrick suggested in comment that it represented a Brand New Day, I knew it had to be front and center in my plans for the living room.

In fact, it kind of brought together the idea of the garden as cave painting.


It was very important, though, to make the sun a big icon in the scheme of things, and it had to be perfectly round...so I needed something big and round to trace.

In a stroke of luck, I found this pristine metal garbage can lid in the barn outside. What a find! Not only is it perfectly round and just as big as I'd hoped...but also one of those lids that feels fun in your hand, you know, like you've just picked up a great shield and are ready for battle...well, would be, if you also had a sword, and even the slightest clue what to do with it.

I lit my butterfly candle this evening with thoughts toward an orange tiger-striped buddy of mine - Mom and Dad's Dewey cat - who seems to have wandered away from the house in Connecticut they've all just moved into this past week.

I wish him courage and bravery and resourcefulness, and whatever else he needs to make a safe return happen. And meantime, hugs and the power of positive thinking are sent to Mom and Dad.

It's like a mania: tonight I stenciled some more leaves on this particular tree part of the living room wall. I almost think there are enough now...but we'll see what tomorrow brings.

"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there."

"It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between a man who cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said."

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, 1950.

Painting Thoughts on a Stormy Day

With the heavy rains that spattered against the windows and the exterior walls of the Nest overnight, it would have been an absolute joy to stay snuggled in bed a little longer this morning.

Alas, I had an early morning appointment (the customer had insisted, over my minor protests about the restaurant not yet being open, etc.) scheduled...so was up to prepare for that and also got myself ready to visit the beach after the meeting.

So you can imagine my annoyance to get to work and discover that the appointment had been cancelled in a phone message around 8 a.m...although the message clearly mentioned that the decision not to attend the meeting had been reached the night before...when I was still at work.

So, thanks for your lack of consideration, Potential Customer...I hope there isn't too much bad wedding kharma blow-back from this for you! And that's about as negative as I'm going to let you make me...

My visit to Nauset Beach was certainly a good and fast curative to any crankiness I had about being up and about so early...as Hurricane Kyle churned things about a hundred miles out, there was some wind and rain (I was barefoot, but in a slicker...and delightfully soaked with a warm rain when I finally headed back to the car...more pictures in the previous blog post, for those who may've missed that one!)...and some exciting surf. Our waves here on the Cape are not world-reknowned, though there is still a culture of surfers, who were certainly out there yesterday. But some of the waves yesterday were big and impressive...and once in a while crashed with the surprising KAPOW of a cannon shot.

Most satisfying.

And then it was home to dry off, have a bit of breakfast and turn my attention to getting a little more of the Nest whipped into shape, painting-wise.

The living room remains the focus, as I added some more stenciled leaves to the two tree parts of the room. Since the leaves will become less visible when I've applied the top coat of paint in a day or so, I'm pondering adding a few more leaves to this particular tree-top representation. I guess it will depend on how I feel later on.

I enjoyed some blogger communication today, as I chatted with both Marc and Jess on the phone about their plans to visit Cape Cod for the upcoming Columbus Day weekend. They've actually made reservations at an Inn just down the street from the Nest, as it turns out...and there's talk of an appearance by Marc's Chicken and Noodles, as recently featured at his blog!

Although I will have to work for some of the weekend (these three day occasions are great times to schedule a special event), I look forward to spending the rest of the time with these guys, and also Patrick, who may be catching a ride with them for a return visit to the Nest. (I'll have to save some painting...he's awfully good at it...)

Much has been made about how cool and enjoyable my roommate is. While the Cat Dood is not, like some boys, particularly fond of kissing (he mostly hates when I smooch on him), he is in many other ways a great companion, both fun and caring and not obsessed (as dogs can be) with his next meal. In fact, he is not unlike Ferris Bueller in that, for him, Leisure Rules. If there is a real point against him, he is the only roommate I've ever had who leaves footprints in the bathroom sink.

When he first came to live with me and was a little mal-nourished, he did make a good impression with a mouse-kill, but since then, his interest in mousing has probably been mellowed by being well-fed. I have often joked that he is still interested in mice...the trick is getting them to roll around in the catnip.

So this evening, I was surprised and interested to discover that Badum was doing just a little bit of hunting, and had sort of cornered a breathless and wide-eyed little gray mouse under a bookshelf in the dining room. He chased the mouse from one side to another...and my participation (moving the shelf out from the wall), really only complicated the situation by knocking something off the shelf, which created a diversion during which the mouse was able to dash to the living room...and catch his breath under the relative safety of the baseboard heater, while the cat continued to stalk the place where the mouse had been minutes before.

We'll have to keep an eye on this situation and see what happens and perhaps I'll try not to help next time.

Meanwhile, once I'd finished adding stenciled leaves to the walls, I had a little extra paint left over, and so decided to add that remaining paint onto the walls in a texture that will be somewhat concealed by the finish sponge coat on these walls.


For the texture, I crumpled one of those plastic grocery bags and used that as my paint application tool. Interesting effect, I've always thought, and as I said, only some of it will still be visible when all is said and done.

As I did that, I also made use of the cardboard stencils I made last week, using them to apply some of that paint in the form of large leaves along the baseboard of the interior walls. And then I started playing around with some of the other images I wanted to add onto the walls.


Patience has a little projector thing-y that helped me get some of those images enlarged, though it was not quite as helpful about the enlargement as I had hoped at the start.

While I had to adapt my plan a little bit, things seem to be coming together pretty nicely...and before the night was over, I had the chance to paint in a couple of accent bits, which I'm pretty thrilled with.

Working on this room is so interesting - I find that so many images and ideas and experiences in the Garden, on the blog, in this crazy world of ours are finding their way out of my brain and into my hands and fingers and brushes and stuff and making their way onto the walls here.


Patrick mentioned something in his blog yesterday about how we all seem to become inspired by one another through sharing our experiences and such in bloggety-blog land. I've certainly found that to be true...and in ways I never quite guessed when I started the Midnight Garden a few years back...and in ways I'll mysteriously say you can't possibly imagine. Or maybe you can.

So maybe I'm looking at some of this re-decorating process as a sort of visual journal, an out-growth of that whole experience. Is it all about just addressing the experiences I've had? Am I trying to visualize the future I want? Maybe I'm just thrilled with the way these two dragonflies seem to be dancing around one another and the way the living room's turning into an extension of the garden that grows in my heart.

The creative process of it all certain seems to be opening more doors to the future for me, so I think I'm doing just what I'm supposed to be doing...and exactly where I'm supposed to be doing it. That's an awfully good feeling.

I ran out of steam later in the evening, though I still had a few more things I'd hoped to get painted. But that solar/tribal image and the crow will just have to wait.

Maybe this evening I'll have some fresh energy to tackle that...but I think I'm also going to have to find time to watch last week's two-hour premiere of HEROES before tonight's new episode comes on...so I may find myself distracted with other, very important things.

As I faded to dark last night, I enjoyed an episode of Planet Earth on Discovery Planet. Sigourney Weaver is a great narrator for this terrific series that shows you amazing things you can barely imagine exist in the world. If you have the chance, check it out. It's truly television worth watching.

Meanwhile, At the Nest...

My computer's running a little faster and smoother this evening, although you can see from this image that the monitor is still a little substandard and color-blind. I invested in a 4 GB USB flash drive this evening. My CD burner hasn't been reintroduced into my computer set-up since the move, partly because it didn't seem to be working so great beforehand.

But at least the new gadget, reasonably priced at $39, I thought...has allowed me to get all the summer's great photo files off the hard drive, without having to just delete them. While I was at Staples, I did drool a little over the monitors...but I'll have to wait a little while longer on that, in hopes of a nice sale or special or something.

After some dinner tonight, I broke out one of the stencil sheets I picked up at AC Moore a little while back and poured a out a bit of the red brick and the peach colored paints, side by side in a pan and then used the blend to stencil some small maple leaves onto the living room walls.

As you can see, I had a little fun with the remainder of those two colors and their blendings, when I decided to see what sort of results I could get using a plastic knife to lay on some tree trunks, as I hope to evoke more of that Tree House feeling the place has.

I also used some white paint to stencil on some leaves...I'll also stencil some in a shade or two of green, eventually, over those...and all this will be blended backward into the wall once I apply the eventual top color.

I suspect it may be difficult to explain in advance, and may seem a little busy on the face of things. I ask you to watch and see and be patient. I have a feeling about how this will play out, and so far, those feelings or instincts seem to be serving me well, at least as regards the painting. Is it creativity, or madness? And what exactly is the difference supposed to be there, anyway? Lately, I'm more uncertain than ever. But mostly, I'm okay with that.

Forecasts indicate that some tropical weather coming up the coast in our direction will bring a generally crappy weekend, weather-wise. Fortunately, I have this left-over image of the bay last Saturday evening that I've been meaning to share with you.

Do be sure to click to embiggify this one, so you can see all those birds feasting in the tidal shallows just off-shore.

Outer Cape Afternoon

Twelve years ago this week, I traveled from the Adirondacks to Provincetown, where I spent ten fantastic days exploring the wilds of the Outer Cape, both in the narrow streets and the dunes.

When the days turn a little cool, I always remember that trip and what fun it was. That trip marked the first real vacation for me as a so-called grown-up, and I remember what a joy it was to spend the week in a place where being gay was the norm, not the exception...and by the end of the week, I recall my face actually hurt a little from all the grinning I was doing.

Also, by this time in September, frost has usually put the gardens of the Adirondacks to bed for the winter...but arriving in PTown, I discovered gardens still blooming their little heads off, if looking a little bedraggled for the recent passing of Hurricane Eduardo.

It was this week that made me fall in love with Cape Cod as a place to make a life and by the end of the week, not only was I a grinning fool, but I realized after leaving for home that I was homesick for the place and I began to lay my plans to move out here. The rest, as they say, is history.

Yesterday was one of those pretty fall days. It started that way, anyway. We were still enjoying the warmer temperatures that Wednesday had featured...but while I was doing laundry in the morning, we had some dark skies and the temperature managed to drop ten degrees...a Canadian cold front, someone who was watching the TV told me.

I was back at the eye Doc, to check up on things, as my eye is taking just a little longer to heal than anticipated, but we were able to see improvement since Tuesday, so I will resume being patient with myself, since it was probably hurrying that caused the injury in the first place.

Meanwhile, it was a late September day and I had a hair appointment in Provincetown, so after the laundry, I spent some time in the office and then hit the road for the Outer Cape.


This bit of wild phlox caught my good eye, growing as well as it was in a tiny little bit of earth between two sections of macadam outside the salon. I moved some of this stuff to Harwich last fall, but it never managed to bloom for me during the summer. I wonder if its doing so now...

I've always been impressed with the gardens and plants of Provincetown. The quality of the light is amazing there and so that must encourage plants to do their best, as it also does for painters and other artists. Some of the gardens are narrow little patches in narrow little back or side or front yards...and the results never fail to amaze me.

It's always fun to ramble around town a bit, enjoying the seaside views and the scent of the sea air and such.





Of course, there's always a few interesting people and or dogs to be seen in Provincetown.

With cooler temperatures coming to bear, there weren't any scantily clad beautiful people to enjoy (they have probably headed south for Key West now...as flannel becomes a more popular seasonal choice...), but I enjoyed this dog, who was sharing a bench with its people out on MacMillan Pier.

There wasn't much in the way of boating activity this time of year, but it was still kind of cool to walk out along the dock and enjoy the sky and the seabirds who were filling it.


Plus, from out at the end of the wharf, you get the most enjoyable views of the town itself.

One of the things I had hoped to do while I was in town was to replace a bit of stained glass I had purchased on that long ago trip, which had recently broken. It was a very simple stained glass rainbow flag, but it always made my heart sing a little as it caught the sun.

I was sad to discover that they no longer make this particular bit of stained glass, though after twelve years (and with PTown becoming a little more exclusive as resorts go, the whole rainbow flag culture has faded a little...as you may recall from my hunt for the sight of one of the flags back in June...)...but as I walked away, I was a little surprised at just how sad I felt about it...

...which is when I remember that this was actually my second day without a nicotine patch (62 days altogether since the last cigarette...), and so as I go through this final stage of withdrawal, I suppose its not unreasonable that I should be an emotional mess. This, too, shall pass. Of course, the Nicodemon isn't entirely to blame: it was on that long-ago vacation that I also first met Owen, too.




I enjoyed this large frog outside one of the stores on Commercial Street. He's actually a large vase for the flowers held in his left hand. Pretty cool, huh?

I wandered through some of the shops at the Whalers Wharf complex...just one more representation of the way in which the town has changed in ten years.

Of course, WW used to be a big open area indoors, with a sort of disorganized array of vendors and their relatively inexpensive wares. It was that sort of set-up, I imagine, that allowed the fire that destroyed the place the winter I moved here to take hold and spread so crazily.

While the floors in this new place appear wood-like, they are actually some kind of composite flooring cast to look like wood. I did enjoy the way the hanging gardens looked from the second story, though.

And these steel flowers added a nice counterpart to the cosmos I found blooming a little further down Commercial Street, as I made my way back to the car.

A few weeks back, I made a big deal out of all the things I'd done in the Harwich garden which probably encouraged my sunflowers to "be all they could be", but I couldn't live Provincetown without showing you these guys. In just a few scant inches of earth between the street curb and the foundation of this house, these tenacious little fellows are putting on a nice show all their own.





Cape Cod Light, aka, Highland Light, has always been one of my favorite things about the outer Cape and I used to enjoy the way its beam would sweep across the Provincetown night sky.

It was actually a story about the moving of the lighthouse away from the crumbling cliffs above the ocean in Truro that gave me the idea to come to Provincetown on vacation that year long ago...and I've always considered this lighthouse a sort of beacon for me.






A nice sunset capped the day.

With forecasts predicting a low of forty degrees possible overnight, I was happy to head home and close some windows in the apartment, and to spend a little time snuggling with my buddy, Badum, who is pretty good at throwing the heat on a cool evening.

A Turning Of The Page

"Oh, dear. I'm afraid you've made rather a bad enemy of the Wicked Witch."

- Glinda the Good to Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz, 1939.

Well, hello, my friends.

When I posted the last batch of lovely photos in the wee hours of the morning, I was making an attempt to be sort of Zen, but this evening, I'm all through Letting Things Be and I'm in the mood for a little venting. It could be that Gardener Crankypants is finally rearing his head, and hopefully you won't be too shocked by this turn of events. But I shall try to keep it amusing, if possible and then we'll move on to other, better things.

You see, now that Drunky McDrunkerson finally got it through his head that I was leaving, we have cast aside the bullshit illusion of "I'm going nowhere without you and I'll never drink again." and he decided to turn it around to save face and throw me out. After a day of silence at work (except for a rather cruel comment about having to put the dog to sleep thanks to my decision to leave...fear not for Em, he has no intention of doing it, only to hurt me with the words...) I came home to him in full intoxication mode, having destroyed every framed photo of us that ever existed...and railing about everything that's wrong with me and my family and my world view.

Yep, he's on the bottle again and actually, I found out he'd never actually left it, which I sort of figured. I have to say, his words don't have the power over me that they once did, I felt no sick to my stomach feeling, nothing gnawing at me, and (since he was chain-smoking throughout the night) only the slightest twinge about wanting a cigarette. (I reached the Fifty Day landmark at 3:00 a.m., and with that approaching, there was no way I was going to give in. And maybe, just maybe, I was enjoying the second-hand thing...)

But no, that power over me is gone and all he really did (though he'd be royally pissed to know it)was offer a curative for the sadness I was feeling about having instigated the break-up. Indeed, I have never seen quite so clearly that I was following exactly the right path and so let him have the rant I knew he needed while I methodically worked through various parts of my environment, packing as I went...pausing here and there for a few Altoids or a sip of water (the humidity of Hanna was already closing in about us).

I slept for a few hours whilst he did the same, and was up bright and early to pack the car - computer first, of course; I know my priorities, bad monitor or not - and was off to the new digs, where I arranged to move in today, ten days early. They were a little disappointed not to have the time to do the cleaning and painting they wanted to in advance of my tenancy, but we worked out a nice deal in that regard...and so now I'll get that done myself, in exchange for no rent 'til the 15th.

My good kharma came back to me when I tried to borrow a friend's van to make better use of my car trips and ended up with a pair of hunky Brazilian friends (perhaps you remember Chicao and Jesu from the party a few weeks back) and the dumptruck from the landscaping company they work at and we made relatively short work of moving my more substantial things...furniture, what boxes were packed, outdoor furniture, lawn mower, mountain bike, etc.

It was a truly moist day, as I found myself working through a few rather heavy bands of rain, and simply sweating through clothes the rest of the time from the intense humidity in advance of our tropical visitor, Hanna. But I have to say I feel so good about it all. Come what may, I've found the place I need to be, to rediscover who I am and to explore and celebrate the world around me.

There remains more to be done and I will be back there at Not Wisteria Lane again tomorrow, when the Ex is at work and it's easier to get more accomplished in some sense of calm. As it was today, he "helped" by heaping all my remaining stuff into a great pile, edging it all closer to the gathering storm outside, which now must be sorted through before packing. Gee, thanks. I've got most of what's truly important and I'll be back to go through the rest later.

At some point later in the week when he's working, I'll pot up some plants. Most definitely including that amazing canna lily.

I'm glad I thought to root through the kitchen trash last night looking for one or two of those missing photographs, as I discovered that he'd thrown away a few of my fridge magnets, too. Truly, it's a trivial thing, but he's always been bugged by my comic book hobby and so I found the Superman magnet in there...but also another that I bought a year or so ago, that has come to have some deeper meaning for me. Perhaps he realized that this one was somewhat of a catalyst for the decisions I've recently come to.

I'll be putting it on the fridge at the Gardener's Nest tonight when I head home (I'm at work just now--no internet connection has yet been arranged for the new pad), but I'd like to share it's message with you, as I begin this new chapter.

"Live with intention.

Walk to the edge.

Listen hard.

Practice wellness.

Play with abandon.

Laugh.

Choose with no regret.

Continue to learn.

Appreciate your friends.

Do what you love.

Live as if this is all there is."

Mary Anne Radmacher.

(Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a kitty exploring the new nest who'll surely be missing me, and I have some needful things to get at the grocery first before heading home to snuggle in with him and listen to Hanna pass by in the night.

The photo, by the way, features the three things I brought first into the apartment: an angel statue my Granny made in her ceramics class, my African violet, and an elephant with his trunk up for luck, which always reminds me of my dear Aunt Madelyn, who loved elephants as I do, and always encouraged us to find the pleasure in the smallest bit of Life.)

Weekend Jumble

So here's one of those honeybees who were so elusive at summer's start. This weekend, I've been seeing them everywhere...so I'm happy to say that reports of their death may have been somewhat exaggerated. That's a flowerhead of Autumn Joy sedum he's dancing about on, only just coming into bloom as Labor Day weekend gets underway.

Yes, it's that last weekend of the summer, here already, proof that Time doesn't only fly when you're having fun.

I want to say thanks to all of you who've written me your comments or private emails of support, in regards the situation with Owen and I.

I can only really skim the surface of letting you know just how much it means to me...and how important its been to hear from you.

This is probably the last thing I ever wanted to happen; ten years is a long time to be with someone and I know and love him in ways that I don't know many people. Which makes it sadder still that he knows so little about the way my brain works and what has value in Life to me.

You might guess I would be quite happy for us not to have reached this point. And that wish makes me want to be swayed, won over by the somber attitude and thoughtful demeanor I have been subject to this past week. But I know from past experience, and from other peoples' too, that this is a temporary fix...a band-aid on a bigger problem. And thankfully, every time I start to get a little weak in my resolve, one of your comments or emails appears, just in the nick of time.

I really don't want to beat a dead horse, I'm not even sure I'm prepared to declare the horse dead...but there was something else I wanted you to know.

The gardening it seems I've always done...and the blogging started just to show my long distance (and local) friends what I was working on in a secret garden not easily seen from the road...but as you all have discovered it in the last year and come back to visit over and over again, this blog has truly helped me to remember that I have a voice worth listening to, that I am important to the world, in some small way. And that, as much as everything else, has encouraged me to seek a little something better for myself.

So when I say thanks, I hope you know I mean it.

Now sweet Jesus, can we please talk about the Garden again? I am so sick of being on the edge of tears lately.

Here's a Nursery Spider we found in the kitchen sink the other day. I don't believe we have much to fear from them, which didn't mean we both weren't startled to the ceiling when it jumped over a foot to get away from us.

Yikes...

I have made a mental note that next year, zinnia seeds should be started indoors before the season gets underway, or at the very least, planted in the ground the week before Memorial Day weekend.

These guys are only just beginning to reveal their first flower buds and while they are pretty wonderful, there could be so many more by this point.

To the left is a photo taken on Friday. Below is the same flower as seen on Saturday. The whole idea behind the Jumble thing starting to be more clear?


Here are some of those fancy marigolds I bought for the lamp post garden in the spring. In the background there, you can see one flower still bears the distinctive red coloration that caught my eye in the first place.

However, it seems the rest of the plant is a little weary at this end of the summer (I wonder if it needs more water, or maybe some fertilizer), since so many of the other flowers are just plain yellow now.



I don't know what these bamboo-ey like plants are. I know there are a great many of them growing on the side of Mount Dump-it in our yard in Harwich; I see them out our back windows.

Today I noticed this cluster of the same plant out behind the restaurant, in between dumpsters...and noticed for the first time the spectacular clusters of tiny white flowers.



They aren't memorably scented or anything like that. But the flowers themselves are tiny, but kind of exciting when you look at them up close.

Perhaps you don't agree, but there was a crowd of bumblebees and honeybees who couldn't get enough of them





Here's one of the center pieces last evening's custo mers brought for the tables at their Rehearsal Dinner.

I think my favorite arrangements are the ones that don't hold to a particular color scheme, but instead engage all the colors there are. These did that wonderfully, and featured a terrific assortment of flower varieities, too.

I do enjoy the Gerbera Daisies and was a little disappointed that my budget dried before I had a chance to pick up a few for the border this summer.

I used a few as bedding plants in my first garden on the Cape all those years ago, and the effect was pretty terrific.

I have no idea what that orangey-thistly flower is, but it sure interests me. I hope to stop in at the responsible florist and see what I can find out sometime this week.

In just a little more time-travely-ness, here's what the sky looked like over Not Wisteria Lane this past Friday evening.
Thinking of everyone in New Orleans this weekend, as the third anniversary of Katrina's devastation comes and goes, marked mostly by a new evacuation in the face of a much more terrible looking storm called Gustav.

Everyone down there on the Gulf Coast (not to mention all those lives touched by this storm already as its passed through the Carribbean) has my thoughts and prayers for their safety...and hopefully yours, too.