Is it blowing where you are? Because it's crazy windy here. The whole house is shaking, not too difficult for a mobile home, I suppose, but it's wild out there and we're rockin'. The roof on this place is supple, almost like cloth, and it ripples in the gusts. You hear them travel along its length, thrumming, harplike on the rafters. The little umbrella out on the deck, the bright blue one the big black dog likes to sit under in the afternoon sun, it's long gone. All that's left is the white plastic handle, sheared off just inches above where it was screwed onto the deck railing.

Here's the beach this morning, scrubbed clean.