Reading: An Instance of the Fingerpost, which I finished today. I liked seeing the story unfold via the narratives of four very different characters, each of whom brings his own biases and motivations to the tale he recounts. Through their words, the story's events are revealed, layer by layer.

Watching: The Weather Channel, alternating with the local news stations, for coverage of the hurricane.

Floyd Day

He's here! Hurricane Floyd, that is. As early as last Saturday, meteorologists were predicting that Floyd would travel up the East Coast, so we were nothing if not prepared. Hurrah for weather satellites and computer projections. I can't imagine what it would have been like to live back in the days when hurricanes took everyone by surprise.

I was up very late last night with another set of pages. My own fault: I should have planned my time better but instead procrastinated all week. I finished at about 6 in the morning, then stumbled off to bed for an hour of sleep. Before going to bed, I'd watched the local news and heard that our governor, Christie Whitman, had ordered all public and private schools closed. Later in the morning, Whitman issued a partial retraction, admitting that she doesn't have authority to close private schools. Nevertheless, we decided to keep Daniel home so that Tab could just drive into work by himself rather than all of us driving him into Princeton to drop him off and then driving back in to pick him up later.

"It'll be kind of fun to have Daniel home today," I chirped.

Tab just looked at me as though I was crazy. I realize now that I must have been still suffering from sleep deprivation to have made such a preposterous claim.

Three small boys and an exhausted mom all housebound thanks to the unrelenting rain and gusty winds of an approaching hurricane do not make for a happy day. The wild weather outdoors was matched by wild behavior indoors as Daniel, Matthew, and Stephen raced up and down the stairs, chased each other, threw balls (until I yelled at them to stop), argued, wrestled, and shouted, until I thought I would scream. Instead, I finally hauled my tired old bones off the couch where I'd been trying to rest and organized some game sessions.

First I played Candyland with the twins. If there is a Purgatory, one of the activities there will no doubt be interminable games of Candyland. When more than two people play Candyland the game can go on forever. No sooner did one of us get within striking distance of the Candy Castle at the end of the path, when that person would draw a picture card, sending his or her game piece all the way back to the Gooey Gumdrops at the beginning of the path. Aargh! Finally, after we had turned all the cards over three times, I arbitrarily declared that Matthew, who was closest to the end, was the winner.

"What about me?" Stephen pouted.

"You're the second winner, and I'm the third," I said, scooping up cards and game pieces, eager to shove that wretched Candyland box back into the game cupboard out of sight.

Then I played card games with Daniel. We played Crazy Eight and I taught him how to play Go Fish, which he loved. "Fish, fish, I got my wish," we would chant after drawing the card we wanted from the fish pool of cards.

Tab called around 1:30 to say that he was going to head home. Apparently the university had let everyone go at 11:00 a.m., but no one bothered to call his small department to let them know. Several of the main roads between Princeton and here were flooded, but he made it home without incident.

After I put the twins up for a nap at 3, I took my book and crawled up to bed for a much-desired nap. I read a few pages, then put it down, closed my eyes, and drifted off into heavenly sleep. I remember hearing Tab yelling at the twins about fifteen or twenty minutes later, but then I fell sound asleep for nearly two hours. What bliss!

Tab woke me up at 5:30. Floyd was upon us: directly off Atlantic City, but just downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm. The wild weather called to me: I had to be out in it. As I had periodically throughout the day, I stepped onto our front porch to drink in the storm. The driving rain had coated the street with water so that it looked like a black river in front of me. I watched the tree branches lashed by the the fierce wind and felt the same wind blowing through my hair, and I was exhilerated. I breathed deeply of the turbulent winds and smiled with pleasure. Looking to my left, I saw Bogdan, our next door neighbor, on his porch. He waved at me. "Isn't this great?" I shouted to him over the wind.

"I want it to be over," he yelled back.

"I think it's exciting!" I called.

And I did, despite the long day cooped up inside with the boys. Of course, we were relatively unscathed by the hurricane. Only a little water in the basement, no leaks in the roof, and no power outages or telephone service disruptions.

It's easy to love hurricanes when you still have all the comforts of home.

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