IT IS MID-MORNING WEDNESDAY…The bulletins on Hurricane Tomas are coming in fast and thick like prowling mosquitoes. All together, it doesn’t sound good. “Tricky ‘Tomas'”, one print headline shrieks. The competing paper seemingly determined to keep the national blood pressure below stroke level advises: “Hurricane Watch… Jamaica gets ready as Tomas moves nearer”.

I don’t know about getting ready. I haven’t the faintest idea what to tackle first. I’m still trying to recover from the flood waters of Nicole who wasn’t even declared a hurricane but did her worst to make life difficult. Unless a miracle occurs, by the time you read this we may very well be plunged again into mud and misery.

I guess I should envy all those who maxed out the Card at the supermarket and the hardware store. What to do with all the stuff if the tempest doesn’t come? Somebody is going to get plywood sheets and tins of bully beef for Christmas presents. Are you old enough to remember Hurricane Gilbert (1988) and the aftermath jokes about what to do with over-purchase? I tried to contribute to national enlightenment with a little revue called “Rabbit Punch” in which we presented the recipe for bully-beef flambé.

Its culinary success had a lot to do with liberal use of “whites” (as in rum), liberally poured. It was funny at the time…Strange how this time I’m finding it hard to laugh at the insolence of Tomas and his complete disregard for the possibility of human suffering. Did nobody tell this maverick breeze-blow that while he was being spawned in Hurricane Hell or wherever, a visit here, especially at this time, is the last thing we need?

People are still floundering around in mud in several rural areas. Sections of Hanover remain under water. In the community of Chigwell, the flood is up to roof level and with doo-doo floating in it. (Yeck!) It is reported that there is no bliss in the community of Bliss Pasture in Trelawny where the waters have not receded.

If Tomas is expecting a welcome from the Minister of Tourism who treasures every guest who can add to the statistics of increasing arrivals, then the aforesaid Tomas should think again. He will get no welcoming handshake and gift while posing for the obligatory official photograph as a valued winter statistic. Never was a visitor more unwelcome than this wretched mess of rainwater which is supposed to be heading this way. All together now – yell and yell loud: “Tomas, Tomas, go away…Get the hell away from us today!” Will somebody teach him “June too soon/ July stand by/ August look out you must/ September remember/ October all over.” Hear that, Tomas? You don’t belong in November. You can bet, however, that he doesn’t even care about the anguish being suffered by the beleaguered team preparing the Supplementary Estimates to deal with the bloated road repair bill. Ahh, sah!

TOMAS MIGHT WELL have forced himself upon us by this, causing you to be using this newspaper as part of your defence from the flood waters, thereby seriously diminishing my literary value this week. What is this wretched storm thinking? Why us? A wha we do so? Any minute now, those people who claim to have direct communication to Higher Powers will be sending in their Letters to the Editor declaring that the nation is being punished for its godlessness.

Never mind the cry of Rastafari “Fire fi wi”. This time, it is “Flood fi de bad and flood fi de good”. So far nobody has built an ark, but if the weather keeps getting messed up like this, ark building could become a new growth industry.

Those who have strong roofs, clad in the most modern covering, can happily sing of “a roof over my head”. Blessed are the prudent who have invested in water tanks and remembered to fill them up like Scriptural virgins, who filled their lamps, or there are those who have gassed up the generators and are ready to shine the light in the darkness while JPSCo linesmen toil through the night.

We haven’t heard too much this time around about whether it is appropriate to send prayers heavenwards, inviting the hand of the Divine to turn the storm away from us. There are devout believers who have already sent up their petitions. If Tomas changes course, then there will be rejoicing that we have been spared while people in other places are plunged into misery.

There has been, in the past, the ugly declaration that nearby Haiti, which has been hit with just about everything – from earthquake to flood — was so affected because of all that voodoo stuff. Some even say they deserve it. There is the school of thought that the people of that land are being punished for historic transgressions of their ancestors.

SHAME ON YOU: Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar might be performing for her constituents, but to the rest of the region, she’s beginning to come across as desperately in need of lessons in protocol and self-control. Twice now she “trow wud” at Jamaica, in anticipation, no doubt, of us getting ready to make a raid on her country’s treasury. Ashes cold, dawg sleep in deh.

Her ATM remark implied that we were expecting to reap largesse from T&T with the ease of a visit to an Automated Teller Machine. Then, there’s the latest — that if Caribbean neighbours are seeking relief money, she wants something in return. In other words, she ain’t giving someting fi nutten, disaster or no disaster. Madame Prime Minister, that’s not how you treat your neighbours… and it’s certainly not an appropriate leadership style. Tacky is tacky any way you cut it.

BAD MOJO: So, the Tea Partyers and the Right Wingers and the Racists and the assorted and motley crew who have come to new prominence in the USA, still do not get it, that the rest of the world was hoping for a new dawn of civilisation in America, but such hopes are fading rapidly. What it means for the president whom they set out to humiliate is one thing. What it means for global agenda is another. Sarah Palin for the White House next?

SEASON HAND: My mother had great respect for cooks with a good “season hand”, who knew how to bring food to perfection. As a “season hand” herself, she could spot a fellow queen of the kitchen. In that spirit, we bid farewell to Norma Shirley, “season hand” extraordinaire, who flavoured her food with much laughter and love.

gloudonb@yahoo.com