Batten down the hatches, Charley's comin' to town. Well, maybe. And by the time he hits here, if he does, he'll be a lot of rain and not much else.

So I was catching up on the weather and it occurred to me: we don’t have to do that. I mean, go away for eight weeks and we leaf through magazines and newspapers to see what we might have missed. A cat got into a plane cockpit causing much mischief (and people try to convince me that flying is safe). Some pitcher broke some record. He was the 22nd guy to do so, but apparently that's big news to some people. "Oh, Julia Child died, my gosh!" But we don't go back over the old weather forecasts. I don't know why, but this seems so revelatory and profound. "It was supposed to rain on Tuesday, July 10. I wonder if it did!" No one does that.

Okay, so back to filling containers with water and making sure the flashlights are charged.