Tampa, where I hang my hat, is in the grip of the no-name tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico, soon to be a tropical storm. The rain has stopped here for the moment, or at least has slowed down from its steady all night pace. But the break is temporary. The storm will pass north of us, but we’re on the rain side of it.

Today and tomorrow will be wet, wet, wet. Some places, mostly on the gulf coast, have reached saturation already with much more to come. My sources tell me there has been a big run on barge poles in Gulfport and Pinellas Park. Kayaks are being shipped in.

The Tampa Bay Bucs have a pre-season game tonight at Raymond James Stadium (against the team still stubbornly known as the Redskins). Fans better wear their foul weather gear. We’ll find out tonight if the Bucs and/or the Skins are mudders.

Lots of Floridians will have a rough couple of days, both in the Tampa Bay Area and further north where the storm will come ashore. For them the event won’t be as light a matter as this blog item reads, and I wish them the best.

It also won’t be good days for the Breakfast Club, the motley of birds and squirrels my wife feeds at various stations on our back deck. We can’t leave the seed out in the rain because when it gets wet it ferments. I don’t know what it would be like to have a back yard full of birds and squirrels half in the bag on seed wine, followed by a morning of groaning by hung-over critters. We were able to put out a little seed under the overhang on the back deck. All day there has been a steady procession of wet, bedraggled looking squirrels, doves, blue jays, and one flicker. They really look woebegone.

Forecast for Tampa is on and off rain through the day on Friday. I sure hope it comes to an end Friday as that evening we will be getting not one but two golden retrievers whose people will be traveling over Labor Day weekend. (We’re the neighborhood dog-sitters — this way we can enjoy the society of some fine pooches without having any vet bills.) If no-name doesn’t clear the area in a timely fashion we may be smelling wet dog until Tuesday.

Of course we know it could be much worse. This is just an irritant compared to what the people in southern Louisiana have had to endure. They’ve had and have a lot more to deal with than wet dog smell and a soggy back yard. God bless and keep them.