Over the Rooftops, Step in Time!

"Over the rooftops!
Over the rooftops, step in time
Over the rooftops, step in time
Never need a reason,
Never need a rhyme . . . step in time!
Over the rooftops!
Over the rooftops!"
- from the 1964 film Mary Poppins


I've been posting photos of our lovely fall foliage in the past few weeks. Well, you all know what comes after that: the leaf fall! And then: the endless raking. Hours and hours of it! Leaves in the yard, leaves on the porch and deck, leaves on the roof, leaves in the gutters!

And so, with the predicted coming of a major storm up the east coast, on Friday morning, my husband decided it was time to get up on the roof and sweep off the leaves and clean out the gutters.

I don't like for him to get on the roof unless I'm there to spot him on the ladder. So Friday, I took a vacation day so we could accomplish some things around the house and yard before the big storm. (This is one of the hallmarks of being an adult, I think: scheduling a vacation day from work to do something other than have fun.)

When I first heard of the impending storm, on Thursday afternoon, they had already named it: Frankenstorm! How scary is that? To give a storm a name and start making dire predictions of billions of dollars of damage before it even reaches landfall?

On Friday morning, we received an email from our local township office, informing us that the power companies in our state and the surrounding area were already bringing in reinforcements to deal with the anticipated power outages and downed trees.

And on Saturday, I learned that our governor had already declared our state a disaster area, even before the storm hit!

But so far, on Friday morning, nothing had begun yet. No rain, no wind. Just the impending sense of Something Big Coming. Something bad.

And so what do we do? Why, of course: we DANCE!!!! We dance because we are alive, and because we can, and because we have joy, even if we are a little bit afraid. Maybe we dance even more wildly BECAUSE we're a little afraid . . .

To enjoy the dance and the song that goes along with the words above, please tune your browser to this YouTube link, and sing along to the song "Step in Time," from the 1964 Disney classic, Mary Poppins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu23HHmOG48

And then: batten down the hatches, folks, as we ride the storm out!