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Anthropologists recently discovered a remote tribe in Papua New Guinea that slices its sandwiches based on celestial calculations of the length of a day. Yesterday, for the first time in six months, the tribe cut its sandwiches exactly in half. As the year wanes, one side of a sandwich will become smaller and smaller, until the winter solstice, when its size will slowly increase once more.

Scientists have yet to advance a satisfying explanation for the tribe’s behavior. What seems clear, though, is that sandwiches are much lighter than giant rectangular rocks, such as those that are found at Stonehenge. Also, a sandwich-carving knife can be manipulated with one hand, whereas sixty-ton stone slabs require more than that, as well as loud grunting.

As one can see from the following picture, the size disparity between the monoliths of Stonehenge and The Autumnal Equisandwich is considerable:

In fact, the sheer size and hardness of the Stonehenge lentels make the idea of carving them with a sandwich knife impractical.

There are several other advantages that the sandwich holds over Stonehenge as well. One is that Stonehenge, while awesome and imposing, is virtually inedible. Another is that the small size of the sandwich allows for easy alignment of the sliceline toward an almost limitless number of religiously important sunrise locations, something the Druids of ancient Britain, with their stone slabs and their savory meat stews, could only dream of.

It’s perfectly still outside.

200 years ago, Ivan would’ve blown in from nowhere with no warning. The citizens would’ve chalked it up to the fickleness of God.

There’s something to be said for that kind of innocence. The only way one can find that sort of thing now is to grab a backpack, head out to the wilderness, and let the newspaper headlines roll on without you.

There’s something to be said for letting the newspaper headlines roll on without you.

We were lucky, as you can see from the pictures. An hour’s work with a chainsaw, nail a couple boards back up onto the fence, clean the pool, and we’re back in business.

Besides the tree down in our backyard, I see only one other tree down in the vicinity, and it took out a section of somebody else’s fence. Some people lost a few shingles; even that rotten pecan tree that I predicted was history is still standing outside the neighbor’s front door.

We never lost power, which is a first for me and hurricanes. Our ‘hood’s powerlines are all underground, so that helped. The local news station says that 50,000 or so on the MS coast are without power; we aren’t some of them.

Ivan turned just enough to the east to keep us from getting creamed. I hope people in Mobile and Apalachicola and such places are digging out okay.

I’ve tried various exposure settings and lightings, but nothing comes out. With a flash, all I get are raindrop reflections.

There will be a significant difference between the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pics.

I’m glad I’m not in Pascagoula or Mobile right now.

If you look at the “Pool, Tony, cur, and Buddy Bear” picture, the tree that’s in the neighbor’s yard (the tall one behind the puny one in our yard) is now lying over our fence and brushing up against our pool.

I don’t know about the trees farther in the back; it’s too dark to see.

Still 3 hours to go before landfall.

I definitely wouldn’t drive down to the Circle K now.

No trees are down, but a lot of branches are slipping past the house on the road. The winds are probably gusting close to hurricane force. We still have power, of course.

The winds are coming from the North. We’re northwest of the eye, about 90 miles or so. It should come onshore about 50 miles to the east of here.

I tried to take a nap, but the weird popping sounds coming from the trees outside the window are stimulating.

Darker, wetter, windier. Still no flying objects outside, so I’m taking a nap while I can.

It’s the same as 5:30pm, only darker. I suddenly feel an overwhelming urge to loot my neighbors’ vacant houses.

The storm wall is still 7 hours out, but we’re getting feeder bands now.

I’d take a picture, but until something actually falls over, it won’t look much different from what I’ve already got up.

If I didn’t know that there was an actual thing causing this stuff outside, and that it was coming closer, I wouldn’t think twice about taking a drive somewhere. It’s not that bad; maybe 40 mph gusts, and sometimes it’s perfectly still.

Very light rain.

It’s raining lightly; gusts to 20 or 25 or so. It’s like NoCal during the winter, except it’s warm outside.

Trent Lott was on the television a minute ago, a phone interview with one of the talking heads at WLOX (my brother brought in some rabbit ears from his house). He said that he thought the storm was going to make a turn to the right, and that the the squall lines should be impacting the coast soon.

Trent’s an expert on many things. Next week he’ll tell me to eat my vegetables.

Hopefully there won’t be much difference between the “before” and the “after” pictures, but here’s what it looks like outside right now.

It’s getting a little gusty outside. So far, we haven’t had any rain to speak of.

If the storm stays on its current track, Pascagoula is going to get hit. With the forecast turn, though, Mobile Bay is where it should make landfall.

We’re forecast for hurricane winds, but just barely. I’ll take 80 mph right now and count myself lucky.

I was visiting my grandparents in Orange Grove, north of Gulfport, during the run-up to Hurricane Camille. I remember that we had to cut our visit short because of this hurricane that popped up in the gulf. We headed back to North Carolina, and read about it in the newspapers.

For the next several years, during our annual visits to the relatives, I remember thinking the place looked like a war zone. Trees all over the place; foundations where houses used to be; the very interstate was ripped into chunks in several places because of it. The trees that survived grew in a curviform way because of Camille. I knew we were getting close to the ol’ ancestral home when all the roadside trees started to describe the letter “s.”

That was a bad storm. It was an easy 10 years before all the detritus of Camille was off the beaches; it took 10 years before I could look at the beach and say “This shit here at the sea wall isn’t due to Camille, it’s just shit.”

I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen this time. I’m pretty sure of that. Five years from now, I won’t be able to point at anything and say “Ivan did that.”

The wind is picking up outside, though, just a little. It’s turned into a breezy night, like any other breezy night.

Half the neighborhood is boarded up, and those neighbors have mostly left for parts elsewhere.

I’m a member of the other half of the neighborhood. I brought the grill in, of course; bought some ice at the Pass Christian Wal-Mart, bought some Liberty at the Choice Supermarket on Pineville and Railroad. The Wal-Mart closed at 8pm tonight, to allow the little people who work there to scurry home to prepare for the storm. Which was nice of them.

Wal-Mart workers were busy nailing up plywood to their windows when I drifted in today, looking for ice. The storm prep at Choice fell a little short of that: each of their enormous plate-glass windows had a careful “X” of duct tape covering it. Which is pitiful, just pitiful. If Ivan punches through that plate glass, it’s hard to imagine that that “X” of duct tape is going to keep the heavy plate glass shards from falling wherever they were going to fall anyway.

So we have beer, ice, bread, cans of stuff, bottles of other stuff, batteries, adapters, and fully-charged cellphones. I took the aerial down from the chimney before it got dark, so we are already without television.

We’re ready.

My mother’s going to stay with us. My brother Tony and his wife are, too, since they live on the wrong side of the tracks, and their house may not be there the day after tomorrow.

Scott and his family are leaving for Jackson. “God help you,” he said on the phone, and we cackled like children.

The stars are out now.

“Ivan” is a premium hurricane name. I’ll bet a billion, zillion dollars I’ll hear people call it “Ivan the Terrible” before the week’s out, if it lives up to the hype.

There are other no-nonsense names for hurricanes that NOAA should consider. Here’s just a few off the top of my head:

Hurricane Ivanhoe (wouldn’t that be cool?)
Hurricane Caligula
Hurricane Frankenstein
Hurricane Atilla
Hurricane Hieronymous

Also, there are wimpy names that could be picked, which would more or less guarantee that those hurricanes would be super freaks:

Hurricane Fido
Hurricane Aloysius

and

Hurricane Harry Potter, which would be a guaranteed monster-killer storm.

I’ve been through two beefy hurricanes.

In Elena, the eye passed over our house. We had power up until then. The eye was just like they say it is: very calm, no clouds, birds a-singin’; if the neighbor’s carport wasn’t sitting on your mother’s AMC Concorde, it would be just another summer day.

The only thing I really remember about Frederic was boarding up the Pizza Inn while driving rainwater spurted through fissures in the brick mortar.

So I’m familiar with hurricanes. I remember the excitement. A hurricane can be exciting, and not just in a bad way.

Here’s how:

1. it must be a minor hurricane; no more than low Cat 3.
2. you must ride it out in a house that’s on the north side of the railroad tracks, which are a quarter mile from the beach.
3. you must not own the house you are riding the hurricane out in.
4. you must be able to spend an enormous amount of time after the hurricane at a friend’s house, one that has power restored to it.
5. you must be a teenager.

So, in order to be excited about a hurricane’s approach, 5 out of 5 of the above statements must pertain to you.

I score 1 out of 5.

I’m excited, just not in a good way.

I’m just sayin.

Maybe secession is the way to go here. When 48% of the people can dictate to the other 52%, maybe secession is the way to go.

After Arnold leaves Sacramento, I mean.

Secession.