Ooooops

OK—first a word of reassurance to the international audience of this blog, who must be anxiously waiting at their computer screens for word from the battered blogger.

Survived the storm!

What I didn’t do was, well…

…detect the storm.

It did rain hard for five minutes at about 4:30 PM yesterday. So I closed the window. And then? 

Well, Raf came home, we ate, it was warmish, we went to bed. Expecting to get up when the bashing began.

Slept through the night!

Storm apparently weakened and dropped south. Instead of 58 miles south of Ponce, it’s a couple hundred miles.

“Totally exaggerated,” claims a critic of the governor, speaking of the 96 million dollars per day lost in productivity by closing down the island these last two days.

Gentle Readers, welcome to the Caribbean, where even a storm can be politicized!

Let’s be fair. No one can predict these things. The waters of the Caribbean are hot—a perfect source of fuel for a hurricane. The National Hurricane Center was predicting intensification. It’s not the wind, it’s the water that kills. Forty-five percent of Puerto Ricans live in flood zones.

And it’s not over yet. The tail of a storm can do bad damage, and this is a wet storm.

But it’s cool and overcast today. The banana kwit is chirping across the street. Elvin, the guy from La Perla, is continuing his work next door. And I?

Comparing and contrasting—as they made me do those many years ago in high school.

The sober Norse have constructed a special psychiatric cell for the mas murderer, just in the event he gets declared insane tomorrow. Yup, cost a cool million bucks, but that’s not unusual. The cost of keeping highly weird guys away from society in Norway is routinely over a million dollars a year.

Has to be done, because they have rights!

Yeah?

It’s a little hard for me to get my head around this. I don’t think he should be put on the wrack and tortured—though I’m also not the father of any one of the victims. Might think differently if I were.

But a million bucks? When my cousin’s husband had to wait over a month in agonizing pain for a very much-needed surgery? 

Still, you have to respect the Norwegians, that good sober earnestness. Doing the right thing. Playing fair, even with a guy who very much did not. Refusing to give in to any base instinct.

Well, well, it’s all rather different in Spain! There, the nation is going crazy making jokes on a poor 80 year old lady who gave her time and talent to the church!

How can they!

Shame on them! It may be true that the results were less felicitous than hoped. Celia Giménez has asked pardon, but also points out that she wasn’t able to finish the work. And no, it’s not a masterpiece. The artist dashed it off in two hours a century ago. Here’s how it looked….

Well, and here’s the restoration!

And now, of course, the entire world is laughing at this poor dear! This lovely lady who went into the church and got right down to work! The press is dubbing the work—originally called Ecce Homo, behold the man—as Ecce Mono, behold the monkey.

That’s just not right!

All right, drop the ironic tone. Admit it, come clean. 

I couldn’t stop laughing. The storm brings many things—salchichas, beer, anxiety. No, I didn’t go as crazy as before. But the general hysteria works its way into you. And when it’s released?

I get punchy.  

Well, Jack wouldn’t think Ecce mono was funny at all. He’d have some sympathy for that good Spanish lady that all the world is laughing at. He’d run to her defense!

He was a better man than I.

I can’t stop laughing….

Stormy Weather

Well, well, we’re in full storm silliness.

A tropical storm, expected to become a category 1 hurricane, is going to pass 58 miles to the south of Ponce, the second largest city on the island, at 2 AM tomorrow. 

First question. Where did this number—58 miles—come from? How does anyone know? How can anyone predict?

Second question. What to do? Well, in the past I went crazy. Or rather, I joined the craziness. Even as I write, there is a run on gas stations. People are lining up—or rather their cars are. Fights are erupting. The social networks are going crazy. The Aguadilla Shell station has run out of gas!

Walmart, of course, will have activated its emergency plan. The buyers will be frantically calling suppliers, who are supposed to have sufficient supplies of crucial items.

Salchichas!

That’s little chicken sausages to you. Yup, they’re utterly necessary in an emergency. People consume ‘em like crazy. And yes, people fight for them in the stores.

It’s not pretty. Two little old ladies whom you’ve seen and chatted with over the past year? Those sweet dears who call you m’ijo and wear little pins of pope Benedict?

They’re attacking each other with their canes!

No, I’m not exaggerating.

Well, those chicken sausages are important. But guess what really gets the crowd boiling?

Ice!

After Hurricane Georges, there were numerous reports of armed robbery. No, not for money. For ice….

The governor, stung badly by the defeat of his referenda, is milking the situation. As I write, the sun is shining brightly, a gentle wind is blowing, the banana kwit (called the reinita, or little queen) is flirting with the cat. It hops on the branches of the dead bougainvillea just out of reach of Loquito, and skips away when he lunges.

In short, all is normal.

The government, however, has completely shut down.

Ah, one thinks, how can they tell?

(A nod to Dorothy Parker on Coolidge!)

We are urged to take all possible precautions to safeguard life and property. The refugios are being set up.

Well, the little old ladies are fighting over those salchichas, but the guys?

They’re going for the beer!   

And me?

Well, I took my morning trot as always, and decided no. I’m not doing this storm. Rather, I’ve done it. I’ve weathered more in the last two years than I had for decades of my life previously.

And in March of this year, I weathered the hardest storm—harder than Franny, harder than Walmart. 

I took on myself.

Touch and go, there. For a week, I battled all the fear, all the insecurity, and the accumulated self-defeat and doubt. Was I any good? Could I write? Was I worth it?

“Bach when I need clarity, Beethoven when I need courage,” wrote Susan, or some such words. So each morning I walked to the beach listening to the Goldberg Variations. And then, after a week of turmoil, I walked by the walls of the old city to the mouth of the harbor, and confronted the open sea. 

And heard the music you’ll hear below.

And said, finally, goodbye to Franny.

Who’s gone, and who isn’t.

I was crying, I was shaking, I was wracked with gratitude for a woman who had given me life. And I was amazed that she had placed her own life in my hands, and entrusted me with her death.

She had all the nobility of all her dogs and cats for whom she had done them same.

“You can go now,” I said. “I’m OK now.”

And I was.

I came home, turned on the computer, wrote a post. Cleaned the house, did some wash, played some Sudoku.

Six o’clock, slam of the gate, steps on the hall. Raf!

“How was your day,” he asked.

“Great!”

And it was….