I am in awe of anything — even a hurricane that might come up the Chesapeake — that necessitates using the words “forecast cone” and the name Joaquin. I have a huge crush on Johnny Cash as played by Joaquin Phoenix in Walk The Line.
This weather event has my biscuit well and buttered. Because I also have a crush on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
How I prepare and emergency preparedness go-bag for Hurricane Joaquin:
1) One case of screw-top wine (the varietals are negotiable).
2) Several school-lunch-sized brown paper bags for hysterically breathing into in the event of hyperventilating out of fear that the unkept tree branches of the silver maple (a “trash tree” as told to me by an arborist) are going to fall on my kitchen roof and kill us all as I am making hot chocolate with the very last splashes of milk in all the world.
3) Waterproof mascara (no duh.)
4) Foul weather gear because I like saying it. I don’t really have any. I do have several thick cotton hoodies with my kids’ school’s mascot on them that would probably get heavy with rain and drown me.
5) Can-opener. Because I got some fancy smoked baby clams at Wegman’s that I’ve been waiting for the right moment to open and if not now when? If we lose power and the world ends maybe the smelly, oily, delicious things could be traded as valuable currency? And I would be worshiped as a god.
6) Flashlight. Make sure the kids know that when I get scared I use British English and may refer to it as, “Vicar, do be a good chap, and pass me the torch.“
7) Fill up the car with petrol. Check the tyres. Get cash. Get Bitcoins. Get additional bottled water and canned baby clams.
8) It was a great read, very well reported, but I really wish I hadn’t just finishedSuperstorm: Nine Days Inside Hurricane Sandy.
9) Ditto having field experience with the low-lying areas of the Chesapeake Bay. They are wetlands.
10) Birkenstocks are back and I’m with the herd on this one. I purchased a pair in beige suede and — as anyone who has owned Uggs knows — this is what water does to suede.
Be careful out there, everyone. Be safe.
