God

Well, Irene is totally out of here, though still wreaking havoc on all the areas she affected with flooding, flooding, and more flooding. I was actually surprised when we woke up Sunday morning – just at the time when she was supposed to be at her worst – to light summer breezes and a slight drizzle. I was perplexed. I was expecting the power to go out. I was expecting trees and limbs to be flying into our yard from other neighborhoods. I expected high winds.

In short, I was expecting a hurricane.

Instead, we got an absolute drenching with rain that seemed to come from the bowels of hell. It seemed to be channeled from the Atlantic itself and dumped directly on top of us, and for the most part (outside of the times I dared look out the window or stand on the porch), in a style of downpour that even Noah would have had second thoughts.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining we didn’t have high winds. Honestly, I think that’s what made me the most nervous about this one, more so than the deluge that ensued. I realize we lucked out tremendously, while others are still dealing with the damage she’s left in her wake – some people not even having power yet. My partner’s sister who lives way far away from us didn’t have power or water for over a week from this same storm.

Yet in all this devastation – all this muck – Michele Bachman still has to raise her voice and spout more incoherencies:

“I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending,”

I’m impressed. I wasn’t aware that she was a direct link to God. I didn’t know that she was the Divine Vessel through which He Spoke. And here I’ve been wasting my time attending Mass and praying. Crap! I had it all wrong!

But wait! It gets better!

When people took offense at her comment, she claimed she was just joking. “If you take everything that a person says as straightforward you misunderstand the intent,” she said while back-pedalling furiously. Really, Michele? Seriously? Let me explain something to you. To even joke about a natural disaster where people have lost their lives, their homes, their jobs, their entire communities is in bad taste. Or maybe it’s only funny to you because you didn’t suffer loss. Or perhaps this entire SNAFU of yours is God’s way of telling you to just bow out of this race and fade away so we don’t have to hear from you anymore. If there’s any joke in any of this, it’s you.

So why don’t you take some advice and wrap it up. Blow out of here like Irene did and be gone.