After Isaac

Isaac has finally left our area (it is now bedeviling the poor residents of Arkansas), but it made quite an impact on "the landmass" before it left.

Yes, this is the ACTUAL tornado watch box that was in effect all day yesterday, stretching hundreds of miles inland from LA to FL.

Some residents in our area are likely to be without power for several days, and flooding is still a concern throughout the state.  There is no telling right know how bad the damage was right down on the coast, but it looks pretty awful.  Miraculously, my own home never lost power, and even though my workplace seems to have had a few short outages overnight the other night, we had full power for the workday, so we more or less carried on as normal.  My little redbuds look a bit raggedy, but made it through, as did the figlet (hooray!) and my other plants.

The most shocking survival is the fact that the magnolia tree just next door made it through the storm.  To understand why this is such a shock, you should first have a look at a healthy magnolia tree:

Notice the luxurious, thick growth of healthy, dark-green leaves.  Magnolias are much-loved, of course, because they produce beautiful, creamy flowers all over, just about the whole warm season:

Now take a look at the tree next door. It looks slightly different than that first image.....

I have no earthly idea what ails that poor tree, but so far nothing has been able to finish the poor thing off and put it out of its misery.  My one colleague (readers may remember him as Super Sociable Guy) dubbed this tree "the Charlie Brown magnolia" for its resemblance to, well, this:

I think the analogy is fitting, don't you?

Note for those who don't get the "landmass" reference:  When the path of Isaac had yet to be determined, there was evidently a commentator on The Weather Channel who discussed a possible hit on Mobile, and a possible hit on New Orleans, and in the process dismissively referred to the territory in between (also known as Mississippi) as "the landmass in the middle".  This on the near-anniversary of Katrina, no less, which was devastating to the MS Gulf Coast.  The indignation on Facebook was epic.

Too Many Eyes

My recent adventures have included my flurry of anual checkups, not the least of which was my eye exam which yielded a new prescription for me to adjust to, which has of course been fun.

However, everybody's attention has been on another eye--or should we say "I" for Isaac? The storm (whose own eye, coincidentally, could be seen today when it formally reached Hurricane status) has just made landfall and is preparing to churn inland bringing wind and rain.

Even though we are reasonably inland where I live, we could still get a fair dose of the wind-and-rain, though our biggest risk would be widespread power outage, rather than serious structural damage or flooding.  Still, the roof repair folks (remember them?  They're still working on our roof from months ago.) were scurrying around frantically the last couple of days.  They were pretty close to done before now, as soon as I can tell, but obviously they wanted to be sure to put on some finishing touches before their work is put to the test.  

Meanwhile, the local schools have been closed both of the next few days, which I definitely think is panicking in advance of the need, but maybe that's just me.  I've done what sensible things I could--filled up the car, brought in a few loose items from my back porch, and drew a little cash.  This evening, I decided to go ahead and pick up some bread and peanut butter in case of widespread outage (no power = no cooking) and a jug of water, since while at lunch we started hearing rumors of runs on these items.  I am glad that I filled up the car, too, as memories of Katrina, fears of power outages (which would also mean no working pumps), and fears of a run on gasoline...have prompted just such a run on gasoline.  Sigh.

Luckily, the little car has plenty to get me through a normal week, and right now I'm thinking that the anticipation is likely to be rather worse than the reality of what makes it to our area.  All I know is, the kitties are snug, I'll keep an eye on things, and I've had enough for now of things that sound like "eye".  

Where has the Time Gone?

It has certainly been a busy couple of weeks!  The spell of hot-and-dry gave way to some serious rain.  Fortunately, this week has seen the arrival of roof repairmen to fix the tornado damage that our building at work suffered...oh, two months ago or so by now.

I also took a couple of days off work and drove up to my parents' house for a visit.  We celebrated Mom's birthday, and even though some things did not quite go according to plan, we all really enjoyed being together and I know I had a great time.  Mom liked her presents, and I got to meet their new kitty (shy but very sweet--I'm sure she'll have more to say about him on her blog). 

Mom's fig tree (parent of my baby fig) is doing extremely well and promising to put forth a record crop.  I made sure to take a picture to help inspire my little guy:

and to give some perspective, here is Mom posing with her prize pupil:

Don't get too close or it might just eat YOU!

As you can see, it has really grown to an impressive size.  I have high expectations for my offspring-fig. 

Not a lot of change in my own garden, except to say that the cardinal vines have bloomed, and I saw a hummingbird the other day who was quite interested in my petunias.  Lucky for him, the cats did not seem to notice his presence, as Khan-khan is known to think that hummingbirds look deliciously bite-sized.  Not that he's ever gotten to sample one, of course....  

So, all is well here, and it's good to be back.  I hope this finds all of you well, too.

Rain, Rain

Well, the weather man said that our glorious stretch of perfect weather was not going to last, and he was right.  By the time I was up and around this morning, rain had moved in.  On the plus side, it's providing some welcome water to all the trees and plants, and we'll be missing the rain when the hot, dry days of true summer settle in.  Of course, it was still a soggy experience running Saturday morning errands, which I got through as quickly as possible.  Fortunately, I didn't have too many stops I had to make. 

Alas, no outside-play for the cats today, since the back yard currently looks like this:

Glub, glub

With the weather as it is, what I really feel like doing is curling up with some tea, wrapping myself in my cozy sweatshirt, even though it's not really cold, opening up my book and snuggling in with the kitties.  In fact, other than having some laundry to run, things are in pretty good shape, so I might just go and do precisely that.

I hope everyone is dry and warm wherever you are.  'Till later.

This is My Life

In lieu of the usual sort of introductory post, I thought I might describe my last couple of weeks, just to illustrate how my life can get and suggest why my blog has the subtitle and address that it does.

So, the other Wednesday, I was having a pretty normal day, the only real wrinkle being that a predicted round of thunderstorms had rolled in that morning.  Because the Friendly Local Weather Man had said these were coming, I didn't think much of them, except to grumble about their inconvenient timing, since when lunchtime rolled around it meant dashing through rain to pile into the truck with the batch of friendly colleagues I usually go to lunch with.  The Lunch Bunch are a great crew--there will doubtless be more about them on this blog--and the Bunch consists mainly of other government-employed geeks like myself, plus a couple of friends and family members who join us occasionally.

Well, we pick one our usual favorite haunts, have a quick bite to eat, and enjoy being back out of the rain, which got pretty heavy on the drive over.  A while later, however, we are in luck as the rain has slackened slightly, so we pile back in to get back to work...when we get a call from one of our other colleagues who is at the office.  The friendly caller wishes to inquire how our lunch has been, where we happen to be at the moment, and--oh, yes--did we know that our building just got hit by a tornado?

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We receive a lively description of the resulting damage from our on-the-ground colleague, but it could not quite do justice to the actual scene.  One entire corner of the roof had been peeled back like a tin can, and a single car from the front parking lot had been plucked up and artistically placed on the sidewalk.  It was really quite impressive.  In better news, nobody had been hurt, and automotive damage seemed to be mainly limited to the Artistic Sidewalk Car.  My own faithful little vehicle was around the back, tucked safely on the lee side of the building and suffered nothing more than being whimsically decorated by a few strategically-placed gobs of (now wet) windblown insulation. 


In another stroke of good fortune, my office and those of the colleagues I most work with are down in a semi-basement area, and are on the far side of the building from the roof damage.  Still, with part of the roof gone, a lot of water made it down to our level on that far end, making rather a mess.  With the integrity of my own office un-breached, I initially considered riding things out and carrying on work as usual.  I then discovered that the network has gone down, meaning no access and no email communication, putting a pretty big dent in things.  To be fair, the email didn't go down until just after we got back from lunch:  sitting in our inboxes when we returned to our desks was a friendly note advising us that a weather warning had been issued for our area. 

Good to know. 

The Internet outage meant I couldn't work on what I'd been planning to work on, but that was no biggie.  There were some other tasks I could take care of.  I cheerfully booted up my main computer and went to bring up some of the relevant programs.  When a minute later power to our section of the building was cut as a precaution against gas leaks...I conclude that this is One of Those Days when more work is simply not going to happen. 


Now, this probably sounds like plenty of adventure all on its own...but wait, there's more! The next few days were quiet enough, and the weather was as calm and pleasant as could be--as my mom would say, "butter wouldn't melt in its mouth".  Turns out it was just leading us on.  By the beginning of the next week, some tarps had been laid over the damaged section of roof, and we all dug right in to our work, laboring to make sure we had everything back on track after the previous week's disruptions.  It didn't take long for a bout of rain to pass through and demonstrate conclusively that there were a few flaws with the tarp-job.  More water, more cleaning-up down at the far end of the hall. 

We survive the week without (further) major incident, and by the beginning of the week after that, we are protected by a whole new batch of super-tarps which are thoroughly weighted down.  This is sagely agreed-upon as a significant improvement, as the same Friendly Local Weather Man from before has predicted a new round of storms building in around mid-week.  By late afternoon on Monday, I'm really on a roll with work, and not really thinking about weather since that "party" isn't scheduled for a couple of days yet. 

I don't particularly notice when the few wispy clouds overhead at lunchtime gradually grow thicker and start to darken.  I suspect there were a first few quiet, distant rolls of thunder I didn't really register, either.  I'm happily tapping away at my computer.  By the time rain began to patter down and the thunder was picking up some steam, I've noticed what is going on, and I find it rather curious, since nothing was really predicted for another day or two.  I presume that it must just be one of those little heat-storms that springs up now and again, and I shrug and turn back to my work.  By the time it dawns on me that the thunder is still gaining strength, and the storm is looking like it might not be quite so small as I had thought, our Kindly Assistant Team-leader from up the hall drifts by my office.  We chat amiably for a minute, as he gives the occasional glance through the window, taking note that the rain has begun to blow sideways.  Hard.  And there is sort of a rattle-and-bang sound coming from the far end of the building.  It is at this point Kindly Assistant Team-leader casually suggests moving out into the hall...which just so happens to be nice...and secure...and away from all windows.... 

We also gather our one other colleague who happened to be present at the time, and we spend a pleasant little while chatting together, listening to the storm, and (for my part, anyway) admiring the merrily tinkling waterfall that was now gracing the far end of the building.  Again.  So much for the super-tarps. 

While this second storm was "only" straight-line winds, it still managed to do quite a number on the local area; any parts of town which hadn't lost power the first time (my home being one of those) lost it this time around (these including the poor Kindly Assistant Team-leader). 

We can't be sure if there there is some weather god somewhere who just doesn't like us, if we have some bad, water-related Karma, or if we were merely the victims of just plain bad luck.  Then again, my faithful little car ended up surviving both times completely unscathed, so maybe the angry weather god's vengeance only goes so far.  I do know one thing, though:  I am definitely keeping my parking space.