Hurricanes, Tornados, Earthquakes, throw it all in and see what happens

After last tuesday's minor ground shaking, we had a nice little visitor Irene accompanied by mini-tornadoes over the weekend.  Mother nature must of really wanted to test our defenses against natural disasters.  After hearing days of warning of how bad Irene was going to be, I'd say majority of the people actually listened... Because by 5pm on Friday, I've heard numerous reports about how giant supermarkets like Target and Wal-Mart ran out of water, and gas stations ran out of gas.  Wow.  I wonder if people thought a surviving through a hurricane was the equivalent of drive across the country nonstop.  There was a guy I saw at the gas station filling up 2 5-gal containers of gas AND stocking up a propane tank in the trunk.  Talking about getting blown away..  Maybe it'd be bad karma to joke about this stuff.... But thank goodness, the higher grounds of Northern Delaware did not get as much of an impact from Irene as forecasted, and we are truly grateful.  Granted, there was some distasteful complaining from people online saying how uneventful the hurricane was, and how everyone else was making such a huge fuss, but I know it was just their twisted way of saying Thanks to mother nature for sparing us.  My condolences go out to the families who lost their loved ones in the disaster.

Earlier today, there was news that two bodies were found in a tributary just miles down from my house. That particular tributary actually flows down right outside of my neighborhood.  Though I didn't know the two guys they found, some of my friends knew them through school.  They were only 25 years old.  No one knew exactly what happened, but apparently they were trying to run through the storm during its peek hours from one friend's house to another.  When I read the article, all I could think about was "How could they have been so reckless?!"  Whether or not the tragedy could've been avoided, it's a tragedy nonetheless.  Hopefully it served as a lesson to some other brave hearts that when every news station is telling you to stay indoors during a hurricane, maybe you should listen.

With all this talk about natural disasters for the past week, I personally would really like a change of topic.  I'm tired of hearing "what if"s, or to think about what would happen "if....." I just want to live life as it is, take whatever it's throwing at me and carry on.  The end of my world will come when it comes, and it's the same for everyone else.  What is the point of trying to figure out what will happen? Can we even figure that out?  The bottom line is, no matter how much ahead we plan our futures, how meticulously detailed the plans are to cover every possibility (which by the way is impossible because life has endless possibilities), we will always always be interrupted and taken off our course because of the unforeseeable possibility (see previous parenthesis).  Am I making myself clear enough?  So I'm letting it go.  Life is so much easier lived if I stop thinking of the 100 ways I could die of in the next minute and half.  The only thing I would do is never forgetting to tell the people I love how much they mean to me, and maybe always keep my room clean (it looks like the hurricane came to my room and left in a hurry)... you never know who's coming to pick up your stuff after you're gone. ;)