Hurricane Dean - Sunday 19 August 2007 - tipsy? understatement!

Hey there, I promised myself never to text, sms, ping, email, blog, etc when under the influence. I'm right now breaking that promise. Very hard to type so sorry in advance for any spelling mistakes - please bear with me.
The last boards went up on our house this morning, cleaned the ice cooler, made 20 litres of ice, cleaned the toilet, etc. Unknown to Paul, the party today at the beach, known as "fun in the sun" on evite, was actually his surprise birthday party planned 10 days ago. His birthday was 14 June, but hey, better late than never! So all morning we've been real busy, Paul is sick and refuses to go the beach party at 1pm. What do I do? All I can do is throw a total hissy fit, throw all the toys out of my pram and threaten to leave him if he dares not come with to relax at the beach after all this hurricane prep. He's looking at me pretty weird but finallly obviously opts for "a peaceful life" and comes with me. Little does he know it's his surprise party... We go pick up Herb and his guitar at Royal Palms and head north for Boca del Rio beach. We're already 40 minutes late for our own party. When we get there, NOBODY is there. Bugger and knobs. Are we at the right place? I phone the Tacos (www.tacogirlblog.blogspot.com), and yes we're in the right place, everyone is just even later than we are. Then Tim and Joly wade out of the sea like some super james bond film. The party begins: dogs, beer, prawn dip, more beer, bongos and guitars. Oh yes, Paul got a guitar for his birthday........it took 2 months to come from Canada, hence the tardiness of the party (thank you so much Dick and Carole for bringing this thing amongst so much luggage!). So, we wrap up that party at the beach and head home, inviting all the party members to our place to enjoy the deck and the garden while it's still here.
Now, we're all pretty much toast, I think we have drunk all my hurricane supplies of rum already. It's taken me nearly 1/2 hour to type this already. Anyway, a great night involving rum, take-away pizza, telepathy cards, bongos, mosquitoes, dogs, industrial use cheese dip, and lots of support and hugs.
Oh, and I vaguely remember showing my sky-dive video to Zac!
Right, so after trying to focus on the weather channel and wunderground.com, NOAA, etc, we have come to the conclusion that it really is heading straight for us in a major way. We shall all check at 6am our time tomorrow morning and phone each other to see what we're doing. Our house is totally ready:concrete, 2nd floor, water, food, games, booze (no, actually I think we drank all that tonight) - whatever we're safe. So we may end up with many friends staying here, or if I can get my pets to Guatemala without any paperwork (except the green folding kind), we may leave.
Photos explain themselves - people enjoying themselves in the face of adversity. ROCK ON MATES!