Ernie Takes The Cure: Ready or Not

11:30 PM--Eye is supposed to reach us around 2 AM. The wind and rain seem to be increasing but our building seems secure. We have decided to say "goodnight, Irene" and go to bed.

10:15 PM--CNN reports Baltimore has sustained winds of 26 mph with gusts to 40. Eye is about 175 miles southeast of us. Things still do not look too bad from our window. We have power but outages are spreading.

9:00 PM--Key Bridge--which we can see in the distance from our apartment window--is still open to auto traffic but high profile vehicles are restricted due to winds gusting up to 40 mph. Still pretty quiet in here. Officials are warning people not to get complacent as the worst is yet to come.

7:30 PM--Wind is picking up. Rose is under the bed (typical) but Earl refuses to come out of the closet (atypical).

5:00 PM--Got tired of waiting for Irene so we went to an afternoon matinee (My Idiot Brother--so so, although I can't relate as both my brothers are geniuses--seriously). It has been raining off and on since noon but not much accumulation on streets so far. Let's hope Irene decided to spend Saturday night elsewhere.

10:30 AM--Just got back from our morning walk. It was overcast, breezy and a balmy 80 degrees. No plywood in sight but plenty of sandbags and some retailers were putting duct tape "X's" over their windows. The only eerie thing was that the birds were massed in the trees chirping away instead of flying around.