Thursday Thirteen - edition 20: 13 things I had in the 1960s as a little girl

Thirteen fads from the 1960's when I was a little girl 1.... Go-Go boots 2.... peace signs 3.... Bell Bottom Pants 4.... mini skirts 5.... hot pants 6.... Smiley faces 7.... Love Beads 8.... record turntables with 45s and LPs (45s cost about 54 cents each) 9.... mood rings 10... flower power 11... Hippie beads 12... Bouffant Hairdos (my best friend L always teased her hair even though we were kids) 13... troll dolls (ugly little buggers)

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Okay, I'm freaking out. Well, sorta kinda. The news just now said Hurricane Ike is predicted to be a cat 4 when it gets to Florida and my part of Florida is dead center in the cone of probability. Cat 2's and under don't phaze me a whole lot. Hey, we get a day or two off work and a little rain. Cat 3's concern me more, but not enough to tremble and run and hide except inside my house. But a cat 4... (our TV news shows a 4 before it reaches Florida.) Whoa! I can't afford to leave work early and fly home to Ohio, and I'd be scared to get caught in a car on the Florida peninsula as the storm could follow us up. But we may very well squeeze into a hurricane shelter. We did for Mitch years ago and it was miserable, but still better to be safe. Those places are hot and noisy and hard on the back. There's no privacy and people trip over you. People snore loud, and if the AC goes out, it's sweltering. But they still feel safer than being in my house which seems pretty flimsy. The kids ate the hurricane food (they were told to save it just in case - after Fay) and I don't get paid again for over a week. The only things they didn't get into is the water. Have you ever been in a cat 3 or 4 hurricane? If so, I don't need to go on. If not,a 3 wreaks havoc on the whole area by ripping up trees and throwing them around. It rips up a lot of roofs. It takes out most of the traffic signs and lights and drops the trees and live wires and roofs in the middle of the roads so that it's almost impossible to get around. It takes out electricity for days, even weeks. It makes it very difficult to get gas and food for days and even weeks. Every one is stinky, sweaty, dirty, and miserable. Any food in the freezer has to be grilled or goes bad. There's usually a curfew at dusk for the first month or so. But most buildings survive, although several have some minor to moderate damage. Life gets semi-back to normal in 1-3 months. But a cat 4... I've only been on the verge of one - Andrew in '92. It hit Miami and Homestead straight on. I was in the south part of Ft. Lauderdale so I was pretty close. But our area was more of a cat 2-3. But my friends down in Miami were traumatized. They thought the winds were going to suck them up into the sky. Their houses were shaking and being torn apart. They felt sure they were going to die. After the storm itself subsided, they were almost as scared as people were shooting guns and looting. Many, maybe even most of the buildings, were irreparably damaged or just leveled. Hardly any trees survived. Their area was torn up for at least a year, more like two or three years. Many people were left homeless. Many had to live in tent cities. Schools were out of session for many months. Many people moved up to our area or totally out of the area to find housing. It pushed up our housing prices and the prices never went back down, because of the housing crush. A cat 4 is like the end of life as you know it for a couple years. I'm mainly worried about my pets. I can't afford to board them. My younger daughter claims she won't go into a shelter or leave without them. I sure don't want to, and yet, that's how a lot of people die - refusing to leave their pets. There are very few pet friendly shelters and we don't have cages enough for all five cats and 2 dogs. A cage for the Husky, aka the horse, would probably cost a mint. Forgive me for not visiting my fellow bloggers yesterday (when I'm actually writing this). I'm not feeling like myself. It's part getting back on my depression meds, part getting over the bronchitis, part working extra hard at the day job, and part worrying about Ike. Or, who knows? I'm just tired. If it has to hit, why on a weekend? We're already out of work. We won't even get a day off. DD#2 just reminded me that she gets a hurricane for her birthday - again. Poor child. Guess I'd better buy the birthday cake early so we can take it with us to the shelter or at least have it while we're shut in.

You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, and Cindy Spencer Pape are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)