As the Thunder Rumbles

I'm having a hard time settling down to write on this dreary, rainy New Orleans Monday morning. Part of it is the distractions of the past few days--painting my mother's bedroom last Thursday and Friday, then going up to the lake over the weekend to work on that house (what kind of masochists try to renovate three houses at the same time?). But I suspect most of the blame lies with the thunder rumbling in the distance, the heavy gray cloud cover pressing down on me, the echoes of horror and despair that continue to whisper in my memory no matter how much I try to ignore them. The worst of our hurricane season is, thankfully, past. I know this is just a little squall. But I can't help it. I once loved the power of storms. Now, I hate storms.

Press hates them, too. Press is our half-feral foundling cat. He'll lay at my feet for hours, purring. But reach for him and he's gone. Which is why Press was left in our house--with lots of food and water--when we evacuated with the other cats for Katrina. We battled our way down to rescue him exactly one week after the hurricane hit. He was scared, but okay; we have a two-story house and we "only" got one foot of water. But to this day, at the first clap of thunder, Press leaps up off the floor onto the nearest sofa or chair. Which sort of answers our question about where exactly in the house he was when the water came sluicing in!