One Week

I've got one week left here. Bizarre. Am I packed? Not quite. Even somewhat? No. Shit.

Tonight I went and saw Constant Gardener with my friend. The preview for this was far better than the actual film. Hell, the previews before THIS movie were better than the movie itself. It was full of cliches. I could almost guess what the characters were going to say next, just because of the extensive use of cliches and unoriginal characters. It ended up being a propaganda film with the obvious message, "Big pharmacy companies are ruining the world and will kill everyone to make a cent!" Yes, the exclamation point is a part of that. It was really overcooked Hollywood buffoonery (though it was British).

I felt tremors today. I was sitting in the courtroom (jury duty) listening to one of the lawyers. I was fading off in the direction of sleepiness...eyes falling shut, difficult to pay attention, warm...And then I felt something. It felt like someone tapped the floor beneath my chair. It was a small jolt, and I felt it a few more times. I sat bolt-upright in my chair and I bugged my eyes out. I looked around the room to see if anyone was about to panic. No, not quite. But the lawyer who was talking looked at me with a strange look--one that said, "Yeah, of course I just said something important, but it's not THAT crazy." It kept happening throughout the day.

I asked the other jurors about earthquakes. You see, I think it would be reasonable that there'd be sirens--Earthquake Alarms, if you will. I figured that someone would ring these alarms--think air-raid sirens--during an earthquake. However, they said usually the point of alarms is to WARN people of an impending disaster. Earthquakes last 10 to 15 seconds, so there's really no way to warn anybody--so they say.

My brother has it worse. He's in Houston with his wife. He boarded up the windows today on their house. 70 miles inland, and we were getting nervous. However, the hurricane turned east, so it'll probably hit the Louisiana-Texas border. Galveston may be hit, and actually stands a good chance. Odd, because I wanted to move there before moving to California. I was living in Houston, and was trying to find a job that would take me close enough to be able to buy a house in Galveston. In Galveston, you can still buy a waterfront house for less than $200,000--try that in California.

Anyway, we're pretty worried about Houston. Most businesses have closed, and there's sooo many people on the road that evacuation is no longer a choice. My sister-in-law said it took their friends that drove from Pearland to downtown Houston seven hours. That's seven hours for 30 miles. And From Houston to Austin? 128 miles. 10 hours. Yowsah!

I feel pretty bad for the Katrina victims. I can't see Houston flooding as bad as New Orleans, but many are already traumatized--already getting over the biggest disaster of their lives, and now this.