Waiting for Gustav

Dear all,

Ah, it's lovely here in Hattiesburg. The weather is warm, the people are polite, and the English Department is a never-ending source of entertainment--that is, listening to stories about the professors getting hammered with the students at academic conferences. I guess there was some dancing going on in New Orleans, and then eight people crammed into a car in the French Quarter, and...never mind.

M. and I went down to the little town of Picayune, Mississippi last weekend. We were looking for "India 4 U," touted as the best Indian restaurant in Mississippi by someone in the program with me. Sadly, the restaurant was out of business. Looking in the guide book, M. noticed that there was a famous arboretum nearby--which, upon our arrival, we also found to be closed. The only thing left to do in town was visit "Paul's Pastry Shop," the world's largest maker of "King Cakes," cakes eaten at Mardi Gras. Inside each cake is a small, plastic baby figurine, and whoever gets the baby (hopefully not choking to death on it) has to host a Mardi Gras party the next year.

So, at the least, it was a nice drive, and, at the most, it was a lesson in Southern culture. We had some people from the ward over on Sunday to eat the cake (which gave me a royally upset stomach), and nobody got the baby; perhaps that's for the best.

The big news now is that, having had Hurricane Fay pass by us, we're preparing for the possible visit of Hurricane Gustav, which is currently glowering somewhere south of Cuba. We still don't know exactly where it will go; a lot depends on whether it hits Cuba or not. If it touches land, it loses energy; if it stays over water, it grows. Thus, we would love nothing more than for it to make landfall in some desolate, uninhabited part of Cuba--where it won't hurt anybody--and dump all its energy.

However, like I said, we're preparing. The calls went out from the ward last night to get our 72-hour survival kits ready. Bottled water is flying off the shelves at the grocery stores, and we need to keep the car gassed up. Right now, the weather forecasters are thinking that the storm--if it comes this way--would probably hit on Monday or Tuesday; we'll see.

Please pray for us and the greater Gulf Coast area; goodness knows that New Orleans doesn't need another hit from a hurricane.