drowning at 7 feet sea level
The man and I hadn’t been to a proper sit down restaurant since before covid started… and six months before that. I don’t like eating out anymore. The tables seem closer together these days and people are loud, especially children. One of my favorite sounds is kids playing out in the yard or street… but transfer those cries and screams to a booth behind me and food is the last thing I want. Escape becomes a priority.
Continue reading “Escape”O.D. wants some photos of her and Mike so I’m going through my folders… and I’ve deleted over 3,000 so far! Who wants a hundred pictures of a bug… or bird… or blister…?
That’s what I said upon finding this photo… holy mother of pearl… I used to take pictures!! And I enjoyed it! Just when I was starting to feel like a non person, too.
Larger version just because.
…of Wilma.
As I wrote in the last post, I put this here not for anything or anyone other than myself. It’s what happened after a Cat 3 ran over us in 2005. Nothing like Andrew, but still…
Thank God it’s cool!! If this had happened in August we’d be miserable. Even a normal October day is usually warm and humid. Two colds fronts equal another miracle! Before she left for home Tonie and I went to Publix for staples and of course she left for home with one of my bags. A heartfelt thank you to Publix for opening their doors! Without power they may have been trying to get shed of some perishables, I don’t know. That’s what I’d do, anyway.
The line outside Home Depot is long, considering the generators haven’t arrived. We need a generator and a new gas grill (not to worry, we have two generators now). Cleaning the fridge and freezer out.
Dammit, Tonie left with my trail shoes!
Continue reading “The Aftermath”Ran across this account of Hurricane Wilma’s aftermath while cleaning out my desk. Though I wrote about Hurricane Andrew’s passing, it’s certainly not for consumption. Our experiences after Wilma, though, are simply boring. Putting it here to save it.
Hubris and the Hurricane or How We Found our Miracle
::Cue the Gilligan’s Island theme::
Continue reading “Wilma”As usual I went out with the dogs early this morning. The day was breaking. Soft tendrils of pink floated across the western sky.. then billowed, like cream in coffee. Then upon entering the back yard, I saw much the same, but on a grander scale: the eastern sky was alight with corals and pinks! Alive with color, pinks alone wove their way north then settled west, as if the angels were knitting.
No, I can’t take a decent photograph of the sky.
Not this morning. Dug this out of my drafts folder.
Continue reading “Pink Sky at Morn”
Found this while going through old files. Unfortunately the birdbath is long gone.
There was just something about it that made me happy. Possibly the dragonflies.
I do hate this month so, so much. Here I am, larking about the place… dogs in tow, fire extinguisher in hand… (I’m not a good cook) and 1,000 miles away a fecking great bloody hurricane storms up the Texas/Louisiana border lashing everything half to death with the waters of the Gulf.
It’s not as if I wanted the blasted thing here, but there is an element of… guilt… for some reason. We south Floridians have had so many similar ‘episodes’ that we might be better equipped to deal, if you understand me. We’ve had to rebuild our homes. The cracker box has Cat 4 windows (even if they did install them wrong side around – shhh… don’t tell the man!), a new roof and new doors that Jesus himself, should He decide to come round for a cuppa, couldn’t manage without a key.
A Cat 4 is catastrophic anywhere, though. I’m not looking at the aftermath because I don’t need to – August 24, 1992 is still fresh in my mind. Hurricane Andrew blew in as a Cat 5 and changed the landscape… and many lives… forever. Laura will do the same as those before her.
People ask -as if no one’s thought it before- “why would you live in such a place?” Gee, why would anyone live in ‘tornado alley’? There are many reasons, but most important among ours is money. Will we move when the man retires? I don’t know. There is the ocean, after all…
This is just to say: Feck off, August.
Wot the hell, Archie! I don’t have much to say these days, anyway. Well, nothing safe for primetime… so here are a couple of Sim 4 screen caps.
San Myshuno, clouded in… smog? Or just an early morning nuclear glow?
Newcrest. Took the picture because it irritated me. I use the hood for a modern look but the Sim Gods have decreed that its ‘scenery’ be of an earlier time…
My homes are in the foreground, obv.
I took this early one morning on the beach… many years ago. It’s been living on my desktop, prodding me to remember things I’d forget as the days go by..
Such as… we are not alone -we are never alone. We have family, friends, all the saints in heaven, guardian angels, not to mention the Holy Trinity and our heavenly Mother, Mary.
And it always reminds me that 99% of the time, we have no control… over anything. Drink that in and ponder on how short life can be.. I don’t know about you, but I’m enjoying my time on this rock, grateful for what’s been given and what’s been earned… and even taken away.
Hope you are, too.
We’re praying for those afflicted with COVID and the souls of the departed. Our emergency services, medical staff, military and grocery stores that keep us fed.
God bless us, everyone.
