Re-Booked!

All booked for trip up to Wellesley in two weeks.  That is, as long as Jose, Katia, Lee, Maria, Nate, Ophelia, Philippe, Rina, Sean, Tammy, Vince or Whitney don't interfere!

Fortunately, Gina has arrangements for her arrival in Boston tonight.  Thank you Nancy!

Grounded!

My flights into Philadelphia and Boston cancelled.  So far, Gina may be still a go to land in Boston around 10 pm.  Uh! Oh! moment:  I have one of her suitcases that I was bringing up with me.

Into The Eye of the Storm

*SIGH*  This is a satellite image of Irene taken tonight.  Fortunately, it's not going to hit Florida.  And on the Gulf side, impact is minimal if any.  Tonight on my way back from picking up a few things at Publix, I paused to look at the magnificent sky, dusk blue with white billowy clouds backlight by the setting sun.  While I was in Publix, I received a couple of recorded calls from Southwest Air concerning my flights scheduled for this Saturday.

I'm flying out of Tampa just before noon on Saturday to head up to Massachusetts to meet up with Gina and get her settled to begin her junior year.  I have a layover in Philly mid afternoon.  According to this latest projected path and timing, I think I may not have trouble getting in and out of Philly.  SWA offers a no charge opportunity to switch, but only other flights that day are thru BWI, which is slightly further south.  Don't think that will work!

Looks like it's not going to be a nice sunny weekend like last year!

We have seats reserved on a bus on Monday to head down to NYC to visit Joe and Joy and to meet Ruby.  Now I'm thinking that may not happen.  :-(  Super disappointment ahead if that happens.

Thanks to Mark M for this photo.  This is the sky I was talking about in the first paragraph.

Isn't It Ironic?

August 31st marks the 4th anniversary of my move to St. Pete.  I remember a lot of well meaning and caring friends saying things like, "aren't you worried about hurricanes?"  Or, "I could never live there because of the heat in the summer."  I do realize that both are valid concerns.  To address the summer heat, shortly after moving here, a friend said to me, "Up North you spend a lot of time indoors during the winter.  Down here, you tend to spend more time indoors during the summer."  To me, it's much more of a lopsided tradeoff.  Our season of more inside time does not involve shoveling anything when you want to go out.  Or putting on multiple layers of clothing.  And there's no problem with the daily commute.  And, need I say anything about the 350+ days of sunshine here?  But I would not trade all these days of sunshine and blue sky for all the cloudy, gray, cold, dreary days, and days with white stuff to drive through.  

The Tampa Bay area has managed to dodge that bullet many times.   Maybe it's only a matter of time, but I'm staying!

And it has been so strange this week with that has been going on up there!  First the earthquake tremors!  In addition to the 5.8 quake in Virginia, there was also and earlier 2.2 quake just outside of Albany near Altamont, NY.  Now it looks like Irene is heading up that way!  And I'm scheduled to fly out of Tampa and up to Boston this Saturday.  Reminds me of my trip up there last year, following Earl on his trek north.

 Isn't it ironic?  Don't you think?

A good place to wait it out.  I think you'll need a time machine though.

Labor Day 2008

Big waves from Gustav. Plenty of surfer dudes and chicks. Water was murky with sea weed. Sun was out and it was HOT!

Apparently, on Sunday night as Gustav was making landfall in Louisana, the waves washed up a ton of seaweed and shells on the beach. As you stepped into the surf from the beach, there were a lot of shells underfoot and suddenly there was about a foot dropoff and then it leveled out again.

Meandering Fay

Seems like I didn't get much of my first Tropical Storm" to experience. Fortunately the Tampa Bay area dodged another bullet. The most we got was a little wind and about 2 minutes of rain around 5:00 pm.

Work was pretty dead.

I moved stuff that I didn't want to get ruined, should a window blow in, to the interior halls and closets of my apartment. I closed all the blinds and doors when I went to work.

I spent Tuesday night putting everything back and re-organizing some of the stuff. I'm also getting in the mood to rid myself of some of the "junk". I wasn't sure about moving some things down here last year, and now after a year of not being used, I'm ready to shed again.

I cooked up some tempeh for dinner last night. It called for some soy sauce in the olive oil when cooking, but I had no soy sauce. I did learn something though. Never pour some balsamic vinegar into the pan with hot oil. I spent a little time cleaning up the stove top, refrigerator, counter . . . I did add some chipotle and lime marinade sauce . . . yum!

Another oink oink!

Que Sera, Sera

Hmmmmmmm? Almost a year here and now my first tropical storm / hurricane. What to do? Hopefully my windows are protected enough from direct winds. But, just in case, I'm going to be moving things to interior halls/closets tonight. Bought me some extra bottled water, full gas tank. Flashlight, candles ready. I'm in a low evacuation zone, the first to be evacuated should it be needed. Hopefully will just be rain. Got my camera ready . . .