Oh, shit.

I never liked purple.

"You thinkin' bout stayin'?"

My friend John Stewart (not that Jon Stewart), who lives in the historic section of Galveston, had his arms wrapped around bags of supplies as he walked through the parking lot. Yes, he was thinking about staying, even though the entire island was under mandatory evacuation orders. He nodded to the old man, drunk and stumbling, who had been so kind as to ask.

"Yer an idjit."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

At first, I thought all the preparation for Hurricane Ike seemed a little excessive: all businesses, if they opened at all today, were closed by 1; move all the plants and furniture in from outside; drain the pool; no school; no Astros-Cubs games, today or tomorrow, postponed to a date to be determined later, even though I had tickets. But now, I'll admit, I'm starting to get a little worried. Everyone and their mothers are getting prepared for Ike to hit this part of Texas sometime late tonight. People along two hundred miles of coastline, as well as inland here in Houston, are crossing themselves and hoping they're not about to get the comeuppance that we always knew would eventually come after the devastation that beset New Orleans three years ago.

The only exception being, of course, Raja. His extremely large muscles will surely protect him from 100 mph winds.

"What's the point in writing about it; you can't do anything about it," Raja is saying from my green swivel chair in my room as I type.

(pause)

"Can you just put in your blog that I just farted? Come on, it's my birthday." He turns 25 tomorrow.

(I write it)

"And can you just write 'Raja farted'? I don't want any of this Baylessness in there, none of your penmanship: 'And then, the winds came from his buttocks..'"

I was calling all this hysteria the Post Katrina Crying Wolf Syndrome for the past two days. It started in 2005 with Hurricane Rita, when the entire city of Houston essentially decided to get on I-10 West at the same time to evacuate. That didn't work out so well -- more people died sitting on the pavement in the crazy Houston heat than were killed by the actual storm, which may or may not have overflowed our dogs' food bowls which were left outside. But regardless of how many false alarms that may occur, in the post-Katrina age, no mayor wants to go down in history as the one that disregarded the Next Big One.

I am hoping that Katrina Pt. II is not named Ike. From what I've been reading in the past hour, though, it looks increasingly possible that this guy could be the real deal.

But here in east Texas, I just thank the good Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that we've got real American patriots like Robert Shumake willing to stand up to a terrorist, liberal, hippie, homosexual storm like Ike:

"But many of the island’s residents took a cavalier approach to the storm. Surfers and storm watchers were on the beach Friday morning. One man, Robert Shumake, carried a flag along the shore to commemorate the victims of 9/11, a ritual he does every morning.

"'I say bring it on, Ike,' said Mr. Shumake, 53, as a wave broke just feet behind him. 'You can’t touch this flag right here.'" - The New York Times, "Hurricane Ike Bears Down on Texas Coastline," 9/12/08

What does that even mean?

"Why are we going to a hotel?" I asked yesterday when I first heard The Bob's plan to climb to safety at the Mariott. "What, is that place hurricane proof? Isn't it pretty nearby?"

"Because," he answered, distracted with the long list of other hurricane preparations that still needed to be made, like backing the cars into the driveway, front bumpers facing the street, "when the power goes out, the Mariott will have a generator."

I just got back from Tanzania. The power goes out there every day. You just deal with it. The world actually continues to orbit the sun, if you can believe it. The fact that I honestly didn't see what the problem was with this proves that I'm still not all the way back.

"Read a book," I said.

"The A/C," The Bob shot back, irritation dripping from every syllable.

I weep for the future of our species.

We're not going to the Marriot, by the way, because of our two dogs, Pacifico and Shiner. We can't leave them.

Unless the power really does go out. I'm trying to watch Ohio State-USC.