One of the features of getting older is that you start to experience the metaphors we use in everyday speech, like "being left holding the baby".
On December 26th, I was in Penang, Malaysia checking into a solid Victorian hotel in Georgetown, having travelled over from the other side of the island. While we were waiting, several waves hit the stone seawall. The final one was 2 metres high, made the building shake and splashed over the trees. For us it was an inconvenience, the flood closed the kitchens for a while. We didn't realise how serious things were until we opened the papers the next day. Had it been two hours earlier, the road would have been closed. Had it been a day earlier, we might have been near the "wrong" beaches.
I don't think I'll use that phrase from the dot com days about "riding the tsunami" any more.
Posted by stevef at January 3, 2005 8:18 PM | TrackBack