Atlantic Storm.

There's a low somewhere between Savannah and Jacksonville, which means, among other things, a driving sleet here in 28805, as well as some genuine rain headed for central NC, 27408 included, overnight. As much as a quarter-inch in a half an hour, or so says NOAA, which has plenty of time to do things like forecast the weather, since things like tracking Santa fall to NORAD.

When I was in elementary school, we drilled on such things as ducking under our desks with our science books over our heads to protect against thermonuclear war. Now that the world is safe for democracy, those War Games dudes have time to turn their attention elsewhere, one supposes. Would you like to play a game of chess?

Today, Christmas Day, even though as I write this, it isn't anymore, we took the dog to Warren Wilson — I'd never seen it — and got lost on a handful of the trails that run up and around the campus. The Swannanoa River hasn't run fully dry yet, and it was a hell of a thing to see and hear running water. All seemed somehow less apocalyptic. It was low, but it was there. A new Christmas day tradition, I think, ought to be getting fairly lost, not really knowing which direction the car is, and walking a couple of miles through pine and sycamore forest until finally coming out into a little cluster of buildings that looks familiar and unfamiliar all at once. Oh. There's the science building. And the auditorium.

AMR has purchased for me a thick bathrobe. I have purchased for her several pair of semifancy wool socks. Maybe a book or two. The dog is dead and down and dreaming of the tiny birds we scared up out of the bamboo the WWC kids are growing without explanation alongside the riverbank. A storm, friends, has formed off the Atlantic coast. And what do you want for Christmas, little boy? Rain.