Observations after dark

It's 6.30-ish now.  There is still traffic on Ocean Ave, and we still are having tourists coming to see the ocean (in the dark???).  So one might conclude the MANDATORY evacuation is not being quite so MANDATORY, they have not put the trash compactors out to block the bridge (yet?), like they did last year for Irene.

 The four o'clock siren to remind us to leave didn't sound till 4.11.  Pablo barked his head off at it, as usual.

 Noone has banged on my door to tell me to leave, and it's been quite some time since Code Red has called with any news.

Pablo is at ease, relatively - he wolfed down two and a half bowls of food for dinner.  One was dog food (Caesars), the other one and a half were hamburger meat cooked in Ragu Sweet Basil & Tomato sauce, his new favorite.  I decided to forgo the chili for now, in favor of cooking something the dog could eat.

There are lights on in a few windows in houses where I would have assumed the residents would flee.

Big Mike called.  He always calls when we're having a disaster or other weather emergency.  It's kind of a "wish I could be there with you" thing, which devolves into a pledge to somehow devote his life to paying back all the money he owes all of us around here.  Long, not so pretty story, which we'll skip, for now.

I opened the huge bottle of cheap wine I bought for the storm.  Goes pretty good with beefy tomato sauce over jasmine rice.  I try to get a little gourmet once in a while, this not being particularly one of those occasions.

Low pressure systems apparently make Pablo's blue squeezy toy fly less well than usual.  I just can't get any distance on it.  That could also be the wine, however.  Also perhaps the fact that he has spoiled what little aerodynamics it had by chewing off its nose.

The wind is still blowing, and I can hear the ocean pounding on the beach (but not feel it, which is significant).  But jets are still coming into NYC Metro airports, so it can't be too bad out there.  No rain here yet, either, tho my son in Virginia said it started to rain there late afternoon.

They're evacuating lower Manhattan, apparently.  Now that's a mental image I can't quite manage.  375,000 people.  The transit system is shut down effective 7.00.  So where are they going to go, and just how might they get there?  Taxi!!!