Batton down the hatches...

Or is it "batten"? Somebody please help me. I probably should have looked that up before typing it for the whole world, or the five of you who read this, to see!

(Edited to add - It is "batten"!! Thanks, Dennis!)

Ike looks like he is headed straight for us. At the 10 o'clock news, the eye of the storm is (currently) predicted to pass almost overhead once he comes onto land.

Three years ago, we went through this same exact scenario with Hurricane Rita. At this same exact point in time before the storm made landfall, she was predicted to pass directly over us - as a Category 5 hurricane. However, we woke up the next morning to find the storm prediction powers-that-be had shifted her landfall to our east, which put us on the "dry" or "clean" side of the storm.

(Note to folks who don't have to worry about hurricanes: if you are located on the east side of a hurricane's eye, you are on the "wet" or "dirty" side because that is characteristically where all the nastiest storms are located. The opposite is true if you are located to the west side of the storm - you generally get a bunch of wind, and a good rainshower here and there, but usually not the flooding and general chaos that accompanies the dirty side.)

The part of me that used to want to become a meteorologist (that lasted for all of a year in college) actually wants to be in the eye of a hurricane. Could you imagine the calm? The pictures? Yes, I would go outside and view it all through my Nikon. I still find storms fascinating, usually from a distance. Just ask my folks (and Ryan too) - I'm the biggest wimp when it comes to thunder and the threat of tornados!

However, when it comes right down to it, I'd be OK if Ike left us on his dry side, like Rita kindly did. Or, even more selfishly, if he would just simmer down to a Category 1 or Tropical Storm (yeah right...but it could happen, I guess!).

At any rate, our cars both have full gas tanks and tomorrow morning as soon as the boys have breakfast we're going to brave Wal-Mart for a few more little necessities that could take us through the weekend and into next week, if need be. You know, like formula, bananas, batteries, and chocolate chips. The necessities.

I guess with hurricanes, the best part is having the ability ahead of time to prepare, and the knowledge that the track the storm is taking could always shift away from you until it hits. But, the worst part is knowing that someone, somewhere, will have to deal with this furious storm.