THE GIANT KID

Hurricane #18 (seems they don't give them names anymore, which makes it difficult to talk hurricane history around here: was that the #18 of 1987, 1992 or 2009?) came through last night like a giant kid through a roomful of new toys, some of those toys being my house, garden and general vicinity.

Needless to say, the kid a made a giant mess, though among that mess was a bunch of big fat chestnuts I saw all over the ground this morning while touring the scene in the accompanying downpour.

Another thing I have to thank the big kid for is the fact that the trains weren't running this morning; despite my desperate efforts, there was no way for me to get to my beloved office. Heartbreaker, believe me, to sit home sipping tea and weeping for lack of purpose.

Yesterday afternoon I was out gathering in the last of the pumpkins and the butternut squashes before the big messy kid could get his airy hands on them. Turned out though, that the kid may have been hyper in the whirly way, but was hypo in terms of moving ahead; he didn't get here till about 4 am, when he woke me up with a Niagara of rain, heavily punctuated by an hours-long series of shingle-rattles and downed-branch thumps, heavy objects blowing from wherever throughout the night, e.g., the big snow scoop bumblewending its way along behind the house till it finally reached the toolshed with a closing bang. Came morning and it was clear that the landscape around our our humble home had been one of nature's battlefields.

Tokyo and northward is the battleground now; by tonight there will be atmospheric calm all over the country, though another giant kid might be coming around any day now.