Ear to the ground

Well, I don’t know what’s wrong with me because here it is, 2:30 in the afternoon on a day when we were supposed to be smack in the middle of a hurricane and instead it’s sunny and warm and dry, but I’m still filled with dread and fear. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Did I say that already? I think I did. 

I had planned to remain inside all day. I was going to work a full day if we didn’t have a power failure (but I was fully expecting a power failure), finish battening down the hatches; and then hunker down, maybe in an interior room, and wait for it all to blow over. But it blew over without waiting for me to finish waiting for it to blow over. That seems rather rude, doesn’t it? 

*****

Advice from the Maryland Department of Health: “Call your healthcare provider if stress reactions interfere with your daily activities for several days in a row.” And I think, define “several days,” because I’ve been alive for over 19,000 days, and stress reactions have interfered with my daily activities for at least half of them. Maybe I should call my healthcare provider. I’ll do that right now. 

*****

It’s Wednesday now. It was Tuesday when we were supposed to sustain a direct Isaias hit, and then nothing really happened; but in typical fashion, I found something to worry about. I’m still worried; still checking the overnight COVID numbers every day, looking for some indicator, however small and inconclusive, that things are beginning to look up. 

We dodged a weather bullet yesterday. No flooding, no trees down, and the lights didn’t even flicker, not for a moment. I even went swimming--by 4:30 PM, the rain had stopped altogether. I could smell the ozone as the sidewalk dried in the sun. It’s almost 4:30 again, and I think I just heard thunder, when it was supposed to remain sunny and dry all day today. The National Weather Service is trolling us. But it doesn’t matter, because I should stay out of the pool. Thanks to a newfound love for backstroke, my ears are clogged with water, and I don’t need an ear infection when I’m working overtime to avoid coronavirus. I can only monitor one disease trend at a time.