Lockdown

So Bush touched down in Abu Dhabi this morning and - as if the rain wasn't enough! - Dubai is now a complete, total, clusterf!cked mess in anticipation of his trip here tomorrow.

In typical Emirati fashion, nothing was announced or publicized or made official, but the situation has been unfolding all day, pieced together through emails and phone calls and SMS messages. It seems that all of the service roads along the entire stretch of Sheikh Zayed Road - the 16-lane thoroughfare that links Dubai from end to end - are closed now; if this is the case, it means I'll have to forsake my car at least a half-mile away from my apartment and scramble home across 16 lanes of traffic on foot.

Then, I just got sent an email about roads that will be closed tomorrow, and the gist is basically, "Here's a list of every road in the city. They will all be closed. Good luck."

If my company was sensible, it would declare tomorrow to be National Work From Home Day, but because it's not, I'll probably spend all of tomorrow in insane, panic-inducing, gridlocked traffic, moving about 10 feet in 8 hours.

THIS JUST IN: All schools will now be closed tomorrow. This is great. It's like waiting for a snowstorm to roll in. What will close next, what will close next?!

You've gotta hand it to the Americans. When we roll in, we do it in style.