Weather the Storm

So Scott left yesterday to be a StormChaser in Houston. He is ahead of Hurricane Ike by a day or two, because after the storm hits, it may be tricky to get in to coastal Texas. He's gone with a film crew to document the storm and it's effects, but mainly to film Humanitarian Service drops -- getting food donations and hygiene kits to the hungry and the dirty. (There will be some hungry and dirty by the beginning of next week, he's assured.)

The city of Galveston is almost entirely cleaned out. Not only are the people mostly gone, but there is very little left there in the way of bottled water, convenience food, and petrol.

I am not the worrying wife. If I were, life would be no fun at all. Scott is the kind of guy who will routinely, out of nowhere, gasp or bang a table and mutter "oh, no!" only to follow it up with ... nothing. He just lets off a little steam and moves on. When we were first married, I found myself -- blood pressure and pulse rising -- calling out, "What? What's wrong?" an awful lot. If he bothered to answer, it was mainly to tell me that he forgot something (nothing serious, like plane tickets or bill payments, but stuff like washing the car or sending a thank you note). So I have learned to curb my natural curiosity. If he wants to tell me what's bothering him, he will. Eventually.

So I've become the wife who doesn't worry. If he's home a little late, I almost never have visions of fiery car accidents or skid marks leading off the edge of a canyon cliff. If I don't hear from him for an entire work day, I just assume he's been busy, or has left his cell phone on the charger on his bedside table.

But today, tonight, or maybe tomorrow morning, a great big hurricane is supposed to ravage the place he's decided to spend the week. (I very calmly read him a Random History Moment about a very similar storm that thrashed Galveston in 1900, killing eight thousand residents. Thank goodness for tracking technology.) He is possibly in some danger. He's not concerned (except maybe for the hundreds of thousands of dollars of camera equipment that joined him in Houston) and so neither should I be. I told him over the phone last night that I would wait to worry until someone told me I should begin.

And then I asked him to make sure that someone would let me know when it was time to start worrying.