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I know. What’s wrong with this picture! I haven’t worn my UGGs since I sold my house in Brooklyn at the end of 2013 and drove to Savannah. My boots spent most of 2014 in a Queens storage facility until I took the plunge and moved south for good. Leaving cold weather and snow shoveling behind was a huge factor in my mid-life move. Last year I never even unzipped my down coat or wore a knitted cap. But yesterday it snowed in Savannah!

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Boxes are piled high, and I still don’t have an uncluttered surface for my papers. But I’m finally here. In a room of my own where I can write.
I moved into my new house a week ago. And each morning, while brewing coffee, I watched a branch on an overgrown tree tap the window in my kitchen. Each morning I also heard another tap on the window in my adjacent office. I assumed the source of the sound was the same. But a couple of days ago, when I looked up from my computer, I saw a little yellow and brown bird repeatedly fly back and forth from the tree to my house and bang its little body into my porch window.
My heart stopped when I saw her. Don’t hurt yourself! The windows are new and undoubtedly the cleanest they’ll ever be. Poor little bird – she looked like a baby – must have been practicing her flying. Must have assumed my window was part of the big beyond only to smack headlong into my glass. Each time I held my breath until I saw her boomerang safely back to her perch, afraid she’d drop instead to the ground.

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Two weeks ago the Governor of Georgia ordered a mandatory evacuation from certain parts of the state, including Savannah where I live now. Weather forecasts predicted a Category 3 strength direct hit to Savannah from Hurricane Irma, with a storm surge of 10-15 feet. In less than five years, I’ve battened down for three hurricanes – Hurricane Sandy before I left Brooklyn, Hurricane Matthew last October, and now Hurricane Irma. It felt like I’d just evacuated and here I was ordered to leave town again.

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