What's going on in Austin

A lot of us are experiencing this hurricane from places other than Houston, and I want to put something up from one such place. The writer, Eliana Schonberg, is a PhD candidate at UT and native of Toronto, Canada. She graciously responded to my request for stories with the following:

The stores in Austin sold out ofwater and juice on Wednesday night, we tried Fiesta yesterday and they were sold out too, so I bought some of the few small bottles they had left and Alba bought a jar of Bulgarian sour cherries, and we both bought chocolate. Alba also bought dominoes and one of those lighters for her gas stove. I think itwas the most idiosyncratic hurricane prep I'd ever seen. My downstairs neighbour has 5 relatives staying in her apartment--I think they came in from Humble, and you know the size of our apartments. And last night Larry Monroe played some great Rita and hurricane music including "when Rita leaves, she's gone" which is now permanently stuck in my head. We may have a hurricane party, and Alba offered to turn all the lights out to simulate a power outage.

"Alba" is another ABD, from Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The song mentioned does in fact kick ass. "When Rita leaves" can be found on Delbert McClinton's album, "Nothing Personal".