Author: Dick

Memories of Hurricane Rita in September 2005 are still fresh in our minds.

A few good downpours have drenched us in the uppermost Texas coast today as Tropical Flash-in-the-Pan Erin moved through southern parts of the state. The Houston Chronicle reports one person was killed in a supermarket in that city today when the roof caved in from rains associated with the tropical storm. That should serve to remind us that tropical weather systems don’t have to be Katrina to kill you. Hells bells, the weather doesn’t even have to be a tropical system to kill you. Everyday lightning and flash floods can do the job just as well.

Nonetheless, those of us who remember just what Hurricane Rita left us almost two years ago — a one-day national media story at that — are keeping a wary eye on Hurricane Dean as it heads presumably toward the Gulf of Mexico. The National Hurricane Center’s forecast tools including the “Five-Day Cone” project Dean will appear somewhere north or south of the Yucatan Peninsula. That means they really don’t know where it will hit.

There is nothing to do but wait to see what happens if and when Dean gets within spittin’ distance.

A very strange experience befell me this afternoon. I was at Parkdale Mall, our local shopping emporium in Beaumont, Texas, for several hours this morning and afternoon. After finishing some business, I walked out in the heat to my truck to find a note, written on stationery which was likely used by a girl or woman and left under my windshield wiper. Said the note:

“There is a kitten in your engine. Please check under your hood before you start your car.”

My first reaction after saying: “Huh?” was that someone was playing a joke. I almost expected someone to tell me I was on Candid Camera. I then decided I would play along.

I unhooked the hood latch from inside my truck then opened up the engine compartment. As I raised the hood this greasy, yellow tabby jumped up from on top of my engine block and flew toward the ground, becoming invisible. From the time I opened up the hood until the kitty was long out of site probably lasted all of a second.

A real kitten under my hood was the last thing I would have expected. A bomb maybe, but not a kitten.

Obviously one might wonder how the cat got on top of my engine block. I am among those who wonder that very thing.

The cat didn’t look like any I had seen around where I live and I can’t imagine a cat riding around under the hood although stranger events have happened. Also, I don’t believe someone could open the hood and put the kitty there because my truck was locked and the hood opens from the inside.

My lone theory is that perhaps Grease Monkey the Cat was looking for shade in the middle of acres of pavement on a sunbaked Texas summer day. I guess the person who heard the cat really freaked out. I know I would have if I walked by a parked car and heard a “meow” coming from under the engine compartment. Major kudos to whomever heard it and left me the note. I don’t even like to contemplate the image had I started the vehicle with the kitten trying to escape.

If in fact my theory bears fruit, then I would be led to believe that kitty cat won’t try that trick again.

It might surprise some of those who read this effort that I have yet to comment on Karl Rove’s dragging up at the White House. Well, here is my comment: Good riddance. I would be more elated to see Alberto “VO5” Gonzales leave the administration on Con Air to some federal pen hellhole.
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Clouds are rolling in from the gulf compliments of Tropical Storm Erin. The National Hurricane Center’s latest advisory puts Erin headed toward toward South Texas. Of course, I remember we went through this song and dance with Rita, first headed to Corpus Christi then to Freeport then to Galveston and finally it hit Sabine Lake and blew things down and washed things out. Hopefully Erin won’t be as bad. But TS Dean is a cause for scrutiny.

I erred yesterday in saying Tropical Depression 4 had formed in the Caribbean. The storm, now Tropical Storm Dean, is in the Atlantic headed for the Caribbean. It is still moving westerly but is a long way off from me for the time being. However, there is a tropical wave out in the Gulf that the weather gods tell us may bring us some rain. If you notice what I said yesterday … I guess you should be careful what you wish for especially if you wish to end your sentences without prepositions.

It is time once again to look toward the tropics. A depression has formed in the Caribbean and moves west, thus all of us along the Gulf Coast have to put in the back of their mind that a hurricane could be headed their way. After Rita in September 2005, I think I don’t need another one just yet. Some tropical wave or depression might cool things off but no, I don’t believe I can use a hurricane at this time.