waiting up on Wilma

Hurricanes can be exasperating - it's sort of like having to wait around for a dinner guest who you didn't invite to begin with. Wilma has been taking her time getting here, and while it sounds like she is finally on her way, the waiting does strange things to people. All the TV meteorologists get this strange giddiness, like it's Christmas Eve for them, and they pull up endless graphics of radar maps, wind speed readings, temperatures, barometers - I don't know, maybe this is their last chance to hold our attention until next hurricane season.

Those of us non-weather people, after two or three permutations of the same boring pre-hurricane conversation ("Heard it might come tonight" - "Hope it misses us" - "Yeah, did you get your water yet?"), turn to making fun of the news coverage. That's sort of where I am now, I guess. It seems sort of awful to become so jaded and cynical about something so serious and potentially deadly. We can only think, worry, and talk so much about a thing so out of our control, though, before it just becomes a big, dark joke.