Hurricane Preparedness Around Here

We’re halfway inland in Central Jersey, and let me tell you: the supermarket was in full blizzard mode this morning. We’re hosting some LBI refugees and expecting to be without power for like four days, so here’s what we got:

• Hurricane lamps (get it?)
• Crank flashlights & radio
• Total of nine phones that won’t work
• Cold chicken, chips, salsa, nuts, oranges, cherries, apples and a few Entenmann’s
• Twelve gallons of water
• Five cases of Sam Adams (misc)
• Four gallons of coffee (iced lattes – yum!)
• Three gallons of cherry-lemonade & Finlandia
• Two ounces of my friend’s cousin’s primo Jersey homegrown (best seeds in Amsterdam
• Three iPods fully charged and loaded with some excellent tunage (including 8/29/80 and the knowledge that 60% of us were there)
• Cards, poker chips, dice, checkers, chess, backgammon, Beatles Trivial Pursuit, and The Grateful Dead Game (all participants qualified)

I’ve been watching the wall-to-wall media coverage (brought to you by those who brought you climate change!) and all I can think of is Pink Floyd and Tear down the wall! — only it’s Gin up the fear!

Actually, our biggest fear is being without showers for a few days, so guests of guests have already been informed that, come Monday, they will have to sleep on the porch. Me and my s/o (happily not married for nine years) have also agreed that if we have to stink, we will stink together!

PS: To my fellow Jerseyites – *this* is how ya know it’s bad: