Update at 6:11 pm.  About 12 hours after writing my post below, it’s still calm here – other than some intermittent rain.  We’ve done all we could to prepare, and now we’re just in waiting mode.  Sweet Sophie, concerned about her stuffed animals, has hidden them underneath her bedcovers so they won’t be scared.

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I have never wanted a weekend to end so quickly.  I have never hoped so much to actually be at work come Monday.  But there’s always a first for everything.

As we prepare ourselves for the onslaught of this hurricane and as I obsessively follow the path of the storm, hoping that it will continue to weaken and turn east already for crying out loud, I am fearful of experiencing a redo of the 2006 microburst that caused a very large tree to fall on our house and tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage.  The property damage was relatively easy to repair in the scheme of things.  But since then, I cower in a corner every time we experience a storm that carries even relatively modest wind speeds.

Needless to say, I hope that my paralytic, post-traumatic stress fear turns out to be completely unfounded and irrational.  We will ride this storm out as a family, playing some games, watching some movies and trying to get some sleep on Saturday night.  I’m not looking forward to Sunday.  But the hours will pass – last I checked, time doesn’t stand still – and so will this storm.

And by the way, any mention of the name ‘Irene’ is now officially verboten in this house.   Even if a real Irene someday comes to visit.