Frankenstorm

I'm lucky enough to live in a city that handles "severe" weather pretty well. Still, it doesn't hurt to be prepared.

I won't rush out to purchase bread, milk, or eggs. We might need some D batteries for the big radio in the kitchen in case the power goes out, but I have my Walkman and we have a plethora of the AA batteries it consumes, as does the portable speaker unit we can plug into the Walkman.

I may hit the grocery store for silly things: Mexican cheese to top chili; more onions for sausage, pepper & onion sandwiches; apples, just because they're tasty this time of year. Other than that, my freezer and larder are already in winter preparedness mode. Cans of beans, broths, and tomatoes in various formats; rice and pasta; various types of breads and rolls (all in the freezer). Cheeses. All kinds of frozen veggies -- spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans. And there's the cooking water from last week's spaghetti squash experiment. I froze it so use in soups. Did I mention I have a gas stove, so cooking isn't an issue?

We discussed whether or not to keep our cars in the garage. If there's a power outage, we won't be able to get to them. We decided to risk it.

My children are both away at colleges that are used to severe weather situations and that have plans in place for the safety of their students. Y-Chromo is a Resident Advisor, so he's in on all of the preparedness planning. Besides, he's an old hand at it, having suffered through Irene last September. X-Chromo's school is more of a blizzard-survival kind of place, but high winds are high winds, and her school has a rep for high winds, including rumors of a minimum weight requirement for students (not true) and stories of ropes strung along all the walkways for students to grasp so they won't be blown into the lake (also not true).

So I'm not going to obsessively worry about them. Obsessive worrying will only make me crazy, which accomplishes nothing except making me crazy, which isn't one of my goals in life. I have to trust their good judgment and the people in charge of the facilities.