Goodnight, Irene

For much of my life, my family's beach destination has been Ocean City, MD. For a large portion of the times we've been to OC, we stayed with my Aunt Diane and Uncle Bob at their wonderful little house on the bay. But I have distinct memories of one of our first trips to Ocean City when we stayed at the Hotel Irene.

I can remember my dad joking about that, mainly because of the song that shares a title with this post, but also apparently because of a severe Hurricane Irene in 1999 that struck Florida with great force (or maybe it was the 1981 Irene that struck the Carolinas - not sure which). He noticed the irony of a slightly ramshackle hotel directly on the beach bearing the same name as a storm that could have almost assuredly knocked it down. He and I have been joking about it ever since, really.

Flashforward to today, and it appears that Hurricane Irene is finally catching up to our joke. Hitting the Carolinas sometime tonight, Irene will be in the New York City area most likely by Saturday evening. And if that happens, I'm sad to say that much of Hoboken is likely to be underwater. Now mother, I know that you're reading this and freaking the heck out. Don't. Ok, at least not too much. I'm not concerned, because there is high ground a hop, skip and a jump away from me, and the flooding wouldn't be terribly high, just high enough to really annoy anyone with a car or a ground floor apartment. The real problem, I have no end-time water...

And if you think I'm joking about that, think again. At present, my survival supplies consist of a few granola bars and a big ol' jar of pretzels. I'm sorely tempted to head over to the A&P to pick up some bottled water, but I'm dithering since it's entirely likely that it will be totally unnecessary (I would say just as likely as it will be necessary). And if I wait until the storm is certain to impact us heavily, well, all the end-time water will be gone. What a dilemma!

In all actuality, there's a strong chance that I'll be 4 stories underground in Chelsea at Atlantic Stage 2 at the time any storm strikes, since I have 2 shows to work at Atlantic this weekend, and 2 Fringe shows to work. If that's the case, and the storm is as bad as it could be, I'll probably be totally stranded, since both the MTA and the PATH are likely to be shut down in the worst case scenario. Oy.

In any case, Spackleonians, it should be an interesting weekend. Keep calm and carry on.