Batten down the hatches, folks; a storm's a comin'.

Well, there's weather in Alabama, which means most people around here are taking cover in their storm shelters after buying out every loaf of bread and every gallon of milk in the tri-county area. This happens three or four times a year- some massive storm system will head our way, and every news anchor and weather person around will start talking about all the devastation and destruction it's going to cause, then all the schools will close, then everyone will go temporarily insane and start driving really badly and buying lanterns, and then we'll get some rain, and then life will go back to normal. Except everyone will be trying to decide what to do with all those bulk packages of peanut butter and batteries they bought.

I don't want to tempt fate here- sometimes we do get some really awful weather that does some really awful damage. But that tends to happen about one out of eight or ten times that we go through all this, so most times it's easier just to assume that it won't be that bad, because it's usually not.

My grandparents' house caught on fire yesterday. I'm not entirely sure about the story, but my dad said that the kitchen will probably have to be completely remodeled. They're both fine, thank goodness, but a little shaken up. They've gone to stay at my dad's house, I guess until their house is fixed, which means dad and Wanda's lives are going to be enriched by the sweet sounds of the woes of constant ailments, and they might want to see if they can fireproof... well, everything.