It’s about midnight and so far we’ve had zero rain and felt some very comfortable breezes from Hurricane Earl. I think it was a little windier at the beach, but still nothing to write home about. If more people had looked at weather reports instead of freaking out about all the news coverage, I think everyone would have realized that Wilmington had nothing to worry about.
After Amanda and I got home tonight I saw that Dave Narron was out on his porch, so I went over and asked him how they were holding up in this hurricane. He said he wished that there had been at least something, and I agreed that it would have been nice if there had been some rain to water my plants.
Bonnie came outside and I asked how she was doing with it. She asked me, “Don’t you think it’s coming?” I gave her a look and asked if she’d seen the weather maps. She hadn’t, so I told her it was supposed to be at about the North Carolina-Virginia line in the morning. I think she was either offended or skeptical, but it’s what the reports have been saying for days. I know meteorologists can be wrong, but they’re usually pretty good at predicting what a hurricane will do. I laugh at all the people who bugged out about this one.
That’s not to say Hurricane Earl won’t do any damage. Maybe it will. But anyone who has checked should have known it was going to do nothing to Wilmington. And I don’t want you to think I’m the type who doesn’t think a hurricane will ever do any damage. I remember hurricanes Fran and Floyd. I was here in Wilmington for a couple category one and twos I think. One caused some damage to the roof of the rental house Amanda and I lived in in Sunset Park when we first moved here, and it knocked over half of a tree in our then-neighbor’s backyard. (She had recently died though, so I don’t think she cared.)
At any rate, I thank everyone who has shared concern, but there is no bad weather in Wilmington tonight.
Work was pretty easy today. It usually is when people are gearing up for any given holiday. Travis had a meeting with a client that I wanted really badly to get this morning. We’ve basically landed them, which I’m really excited about, though I’m not totally celebrating until we have the deposit.
Amanda and Milly were supposed to get together with Lisa and Ayden Hauenstein, but Aiden didn’t have a good night last night so instead Amanda took Milly to her work, where her boss, Laura, fed Milly her lunch. After that they went to Target for a bit.
I mentioned earlier that Amanda and I had come home. We were coming home from hanging out with the Johnsons, who had invited us over with little notice this evening. That’s fine by us- we had nothing going on anyway and were glad to hang out.
Jacob had just been put to bed before we got there, so we didn’t see him, but Reece, and especially Stephanie, seemed pretty entertained by Milly, particularly when she signed “more.” Milly was pretty talkative after we ate, too. (White chili and salad.)
After dinner we put Milly to bed and played a couple games of Settlers of Catan. Milly didn’t cry nearly as much as she did at Nick and Amy’s last night, which is definitely a good thing. Amanda and I were afraid she’d wake up Jacob.
Reece definitely plays Catan differently from us. He likes to make sure the board is somewhat balanced, whereas we’re used to throwing out all the pieces randomly. He won the first game playing it his way and I won the second one playing it the regular way. (Assuming our way is the regular way, of course.)
It was nice to hang out with them. They don’t live too far from us and we’ve tried to get together a few times before, but they’re always pretty busy. Next time we get together we’ll introduce them to Puerto Rico, or maybe we’ll have Nick and Amy come over too and have some six-player Catan.
Looking forward to Topsail tomorrow.
Zach Dotsey