Rain coming down, gas going up

FAR Manor is far enough from Katrina that we're only getting a little taste of it. Having had to drive home through nearly blinding rain this evening, without wind to complicate matters further, I don't envy anyone closer in. I drove through a tornado warning area, and I saw everything but rotation at one point. The intersection where I usually get off the four-lane was getting lots of lightning down the way, so I went up and around.

During a lull in the action, I poured the water out of the bottom of my potted basil and dragged all the herbs in pots (and flowers in hanging baskets) into the garage. I think one of the sage plants (in the ground) is soggy toast, looking at it, but maybe it'll perk up. I think we already got the two inches of rain predicted for the area, and we have another day to go. Yuck! Then we went into town and filled gas tanks and containers... one of the attendants told the wife that they're going to jump the price from $2.63 to $3.08 tonight! Katrina has hosed up a bunch of production down along the Gulf, so we may actually see some genuine shortages before too long. I took The Barge today and gassed it up where it was $2.47, and we got a 10 cent discount, which made a pretty big difference compared to around here (especially tomorrow). Turns out The Barge gets close to 25mpg with fresh oil and careful highway driving, maybe even a little better than the minivan (big shock). But I tell ya, Dominic Tocci nails it.

Plan B is in action. I'm working at home tomorrow, maybe Wednesday if things don't go haywire, and I have the motorcycle if I need to go anywhere. Maybe things will recover before we have to buy much gas again. (Yeah right.)