Well, the saga continues....

as I wake up this AM to find that our house, our street, our city and the surrounding cities all have been saturated with the smell of burning, smoke. North Carolina's Great Dismal Swamp continues to burn and the smoke is now zooming our way on the pre-Irene winds.

Fist of all, I think a prize should go to the person or persons who named the Great Dismal because they knew from whence the speak. Not long ago a big big black bear was found 'vacationing' on the Beach, down by the oceanfront, in the heavily treed yards of the homes there. It seems he wanted a little change of scenery - from where? The Great Dismal. Let's be honest, if a bear who has free range of an entire heavily treed swamp decides to WALK to the 'big city' well, something's gotta be going on. (Not to mention, when did this bear do all of this walking, unnoticed?) Oh, wait, maybe it was when the smoke from the burning trees in the Dismal was so bad that we could not see a big black bear lumbering across the city?

Now, if the smoke and assorted wildlife that I really love (in their own habitat, thank you very much) aren't enough we have the shakey-shakey earth quakey a few days ago. Everyone calms down from that only to be introduced to.....Irene.

Look, Irene, do not come here. I do not want to have to deal with another hurricane. The last one that had a big impact here was Isabelle. Let me just say, 5 days without electricity (which should really read - without light to read at night, AC or most important ICE CUBES) was more than I ever wanted to experience again. But, to paraphrase an old saying, "This ain't my first hurricane".Katrina literally wiped out the homes of my mother, niece, sister and nephew. Not to even mention that it decimated the town where I was born and spent much of my childhood summers. Enough with the hurricanes already.

And if all of this does not seem like a comedy of errors, a farce of phooey, I wake up this AM take a deep breath and holding it, run out to get the paper, only to meet the neighbor's DIL sitting outside smoking. (The smoke does not bother her it would seem). And, what does she tell me?

"It looks like all of the predictions for 2012 are coming true. Everything seems to be moving in that direction." At which point, I turned around and moved myself in the direction of my house.

Burning swamps, runaway bears, earthquakes, Irene (and her nasty sister storms) all are too much for someone to have to deal with before my first cup of black coffee no sugar of the day. There is just so much a person should be expected to endure.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go start stockpiling ice cubes.