It’s hurricane season in the Gulf and that means one thing: Time to stock up on Holy Bread.

What? You’ve never heard of Holy Bread? It’s Italian bread from a St. Joseph’s altar that’s been blessed by a priest.

To prevent flooding, you just toss a little chunk of Holy Bread out the back door and pray to St. Joseph (Jesus’ earthly dad) for protection.

I usually have a loaf or two in my freezer for just such an occasion. You can’t buy Holy Bread at the grocery store, by the way. You have to have a Sicilian connection. Mine is my mother.

The day before Hurricane Ike struck last year, Boy helped me spread Holy Bread crumbs everywhere. “St. Joseph, protect the fig tree,” Boy prayed. “St. Joseph, protect the dog house.”

It felt like a sacred ritual as Boy and I solemnly tromped through the yard, blessing everything in sight.

It’s so difficult knowing how to pray when a monster storm the size the Gulf is barreling down on you.

“Make it go away,” you pray, even though at Category 2 and up, that seems physically impossible.

An Atlantic storm, Ana, just disappeared off the radar today, never to return. If only Ike would have made such a quiet exit.

No, when they’re that gigantic, they are going to hit someone. So you pray it won’t be you.

Sorry, Mexico, but you’re our first target when a hurricane comes skating across Cuba. If it veers north, then we hope for Corpus. No offense, ya’ll.

If it’s bound and determined to hit us, we pray we won’t be on the “dirty side.” If we must be hit, make it a clean hit, we pray.

Saturday we visited Galveston for the first time since Ike. If you take the 61st Street exit, you won’t even realize what happened last year. But if you go down Broadway, you’ll see that all the live oaks are dead and lots of the Victorians have turned into boarded-up colonies of mold.

The place is coming back. It was jammed with Houston cars this weekend, bumper to bumper on the Seawall. Yes there are beaches. Yes there is sand. Yes, Galveston lives.

Please God, no more for a while. Please give her a pass this hurricane season. Galveston, if I could, I’d rain down Holy Bread on you.

Guess what I want for Mother’s Day? Swine flu. Just a very mild case. I wish my two best friends from high school would get it, too, and that we would have to be isolated together in a remote location. Preferably a beach house on Padre Island. I bet Tamiflu tastes pretty good in a pina colada.

I should add that my two best friends from high school have 10 children between them. They would take me up on this.

The bus is half empty today. Are people driving in to work because they’re afraid of catching swine flu on mass transit? Should I be wearing a mask? Is that person behind me coughing?

Sometimes I feel that my personal panic button is permanently mashed down. Thanks a lot, MEDIA!

Really, it’s stupid of me to blame the media for my constant state of anxiety, isn’t it? Because there’s really no such thing as “the media,” just as there’s no such thing as “the man” (as in, sticking it to “the man”).

I used to be a newspaper editor so I’ve seen the slimy underbelly first hand. Listen to me: There is no amorphous mass called “the media” that thinks with one mind. It just feels as if there is.

If I didn’t know any better, here’s how I’d think “the media” worked:

All the big shot editors in the world gather each morning around a round, Dr. Strange Love table in an underground bunker somewhere at NORAD. Like high rollers out to corner the pork belly market (maybe that’s a bad choice of similes today), they collude with each other to whip us into a daily frenzy. They’re all smoking big stogies, even the women, especially the women, and laughing like crows.

– “ ‘Pandemic’ is too long to fit into a headline. Just use the word ‘doom’ ….”

– “I kinda like ‘aporkalpyse’…”

– “What about the recession? Does it still have legs?”

– “Nah, people are sick of that. Call the White House and see if Obama has the flu. Better yet, call Susan Boyle…”

But it’s not like that (except maybe at FOX). Here’s how typical editors decide on news coverage. Are you ready for this? They look at their competitors and see what they have, and then they go with that. They are covering their butts, making sure they don’t get chewed on by the higher ups.

So the ultimate goal is not audience manipulation: it’s butt protection.

It seems like they’re in collusion, but all they’re really doing is constantly looking at each other for validation that crap is important. It’s not conspiracy; it’s just plain old fear of an ass whuppin’. So there you have it.

Still, if you’re a really good journalist, and believe me, they’re still out there, I’m married to one, you go find stuff out. Then you ask yourself: Does this matter? Can someone benefit from knowing this? And if the answer is anywhere near yes, you run with it.

On my bus ride to downtown Houston this morning, I see a string of cars, miles long, parked on the shoulder of the freeway, waiting.

The side streets along Highway 59 are all flooded, and some cars are stranded with water up to the door. Can’t see if anyone is inside.

I can’t figure out what all the people parked on the shoulder of the highway are waiting for. It could be hours before the waters recede. And there could be more rain coming. Are they going to stay there all morning, talking on their cell phones? Isn’t there a place somewhere down the road to take refuge in?

Why do people do this? Is this the reason flight attendants have to scream at passengers to exit a crashed plane?

Honestly, the whole nation feels like it’s parked on the side of the freeway right now, waiting for the recession to recede.

People, get moving! Don’t stop ‘til you get to the I-Hop!