Wednesday, September 3, 2008

9/1/08 6:00 AM Bad Beans

I just woke up. The power went out just as I got out of bed. It blinked back on just long enough for me to realize the flaw in my whole bean fresh coffee idea. No electricity, no coffee. Bummer! In the blink back on I did manage to grind enough for a quick pot. I also realized that another of the spoils of cleaning out friends’ freezers is ground coffee. I’m a coffee addict. Gustav will not deny me my coffee.

The wind is really blowing now. The cycling back and forth, that oscillating between gust and lull is seesawing at the same cadence as last night only now both the gusts and the lulls are much stronger. My very rough estimates are gusts around 50 or 60 MPH with lulls at maybe half that. It’s raining but not very much. Without the wind it would just be a soft, gentle shower. Instead, is a fluctuating, horizontal parade of flowing rain, leaf matter, and light debris moving directly north to south, straight down (or gaily forward) Webster Street, heading from Magazine Street towards Tchoupitoulas. The parade that is hurricane Gustav is passing right in front of my place, moving left to right, river bound.

Every so often I can hear what I believe to be tree branches snapping. Lightning flashes periodically, sporadically. There is little light outside, only that pale, yellow/gray, sickly feeble feeling light illuminating the raw power of the wind. I’m going to get geared up and venture outside after another cup of coffee.

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