Observations after dark

It's 6.30-ish now.  There is still traffic on Ocean Ave, and we still are having tourists coming to see the ocean (in the dark???).  So one might conclude the MANDATORY evacuation is not being quite so MANDATORY, they have not put the trash compactors out to block the bridge (yet?), like they did last year for Irene.

 The four o'clock siren to remind us to leave didn't sound till 4.11.  Pablo barked his head off at it, as usual.

 Noone has banged on my door to tell me to leave, and it's been quite some time since Code Red has called with any news.

Pablo is at ease, relatively - he wolfed down two and a half bowls of food for dinner.  One was dog food (Caesars), the other one and a half were hamburger meat cooked in Ragu Sweet Basil & Tomato sauce, his new favorite.  I decided to forgo the chili for now, in favor of cooking something the dog could eat.

There are lights on in a few windows in houses where I would have assumed the residents would flee.

Big Mike called.  He always calls when we're having a disaster or other weather emergency.  It's kind of a "wish I could be there with you" thing, which devolves into a pledge to somehow devote his life to paying back all the money he owes all of us around here.  Long, not so pretty story, which we'll skip, for now.

I opened the huge bottle of cheap wine I bought for the storm.  Goes pretty good with beefy tomato sauce over jasmine rice.  I try to get a little gourmet once in a while, this not being particularly one of those occasions.

Low pressure systems apparently make Pablo's blue squeezy toy fly less well than usual.  I just can't get any distance on it.  That could also be the wine, however.  Also perhaps the fact that he has spoiled what little aerodynamics it had by chewing off its nose.

The wind is still blowing, and I can hear the ocean pounding on the beach (but not feel it, which is significant).  But jets are still coming into NYC Metro airports, so it can't be too bad out there.  No rain here yet, either, tho my son in Virginia said it started to rain there late afternoon.

They're evacuating lower Manhattan, apparently.  Now that's a mental image I can't quite manage.  375,000 people.  The transit system is shut down effective 7.00.  So where are they going to go, and just how might they get there?  Taxi!!!

A comedic interval

The suspense is making me crazy.  So here's a way to spend a few minutes being entertained, instead of worried:

Quite an interesting conglomeration of Wagner, in no particular order.  This is where I learned my first opera music.  Haven't stopped learning yet.  Thanks, Buggs!

Sunday afternoon - tourists & kitesurfers

Well, I didn't take pictures of the tourists, they look just like Bennies but with clothes on (it's not real warm out today).  But I did get a good shot of one of the kitesurfers:

Doesn't look like much fun to me, but that's just me.

Everything is uniformly grey now, and the wind is doing its thing, but still nothing spectacular.  Not raining yet, either.

More kitesurfers, with the kites on the ground.  I imagine they talk about their game like a bunch of golfers.  Lots of dogs out, too.  The dogs talk among themselves.  Pablo had a nice walk, but he got cold, so we came in.

High tide Sunday morning

The ocean, obviously.  Some fool was in there swimming, or attempting to swim.  I saw him coming out of the water, seems to have survived.  Rough surf, no fishing, no gawkers, no surfers, it's all breaking very close to shore.  Waves were running just up to the first mound, then dribbling into the trough, not up to the dunes. 

Wind is kicking up (started around 2.00 am), but no more so than usual, we get this kind of wind pretty often (maybe 10-15 mph), especially as winter approaches.  Lots of clouds, no rain.  Blue sky on the horizon.

They've put off the storm's arrival till early morning Tuesday.  That doesn't help much, if I go to work on Monday, I can't come home again until someone arbitrarily decides it's ok.  Some politician who lives in a mansion somewhere, where the hurricane won't reach him, and there's a butler to hold his umbrella.  Some fat asshole who doesn't understand that if some of us don't get to go to work, we don't get paid, and then we have to stay close to a week in some hotel somewhere (which probably doesn't let dogs stay there), which will cost more than the week's pay we're going to lose by not being able to go to work.  And meanwhile nobody is watching the house except some thief who is a friend of the po-lice and can help himself once he figures out everyone is gone.

To make a long story longer, I don't think I'm going anywhere.  I've loaned out the cinderblocks that have stood in a pile in my yard for years now, to people down the block who are also not going anywhere, to hold down their whatevers, or block something closed, or what use they can make of cinderblocks in this situation.  Better than them just sitting there in my yard, I guess.

Surf's up - moderately

5.30 pm, surf's up a bit, nothing to write home about, not enough for the surfers, but there are fisher-people out there.  Maybe the fish want to be "rescued" from the storm?

Baby cops in bright yellow golf shirts came around a while ago to tell everyone there's a MANDATORY evacuation at 4.00 tomorrow afternoon.  I hate that word.  It makes me want to do anything other than what someone is trying to get me to do.  I prefer to use my own judgment, and stay out from under trees in a hurricane or tropical storm.  There are no trees here.  There are plenty of trees in the area where I would have to go if MANDATORILY evacuated. 

So far I and most of the neighbors plan to stay put.  And we told the baby cops in bright yellow golf shirts as much.  The one who came to my door seemed afraid of me, he almost fell off the front porch when I told him I'm not planning on going anywhere.

I was rude, I'm afraid.  I didn't open the door so the baby cop could give me his MANDATORY printed notice.  Oh well.  I wished I'd still had the big dog, so he could snarl threateningly through the screen. He used to make people turn white as the proverbial sheet and jump backwards the four steps down off the porch.  I don't snarl quite as effectively.

Waiting for Sandy

Nothing happening here yet.  In fact, it's sunny and warm-ish now, tho you can almost hear the threatening movie-music playing faintly in the background.

So far, the gawkers have not come to the beach to see the hurricane, but some surfers have been around, and went away disappointed.  Here's a shot I took with the phone this morning on my Pablo walk:

 

Nice god-rays, assorted boats in the area tho not in the picture, and no surf to speak of.  The cloud bank cleared away around 10.00.  It went west, in case that has any significance.  Maybe it's that left turn thing.

NO LEFT TURN

Tonight I'm trying to figure out what the forecasters are seeing that is going to cause this storm, Sandy, to come up the coast, get to NJ, and suddenly make a left turn and come ashore.  Doesn't it know that this is New Jersey, land of the jug handle?  You can't make a left turn in New Jersey.  It's simply not possible.  Not to mention it's highly illegal.

Impending doom - or something

Here we go again, waiting for a storm to show up and do whatever it might do.  This time it's Sandy, which is still in the Bahamas as I write this, but has been having a gloom and doom effect here since maybe Weds evening.  Skies are cloudy and heavy with wetness, none of which is coming down quite yet.  Weather presenters are going all manic, warning of the end of the world, or something close to it, which is supposed to (maybe) happen Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday next week.  The panic-mongering is intense and disturbing.  My mother is packed and ready to leave.

No doubt if something actually does come this way, we will be told to evacuate to the inland portions of the county.  You can go back to my posts from last August/September and see how that worked out last time, when Irene came for a visit.  Considering the inland areas had far more damage than we did here at the beach, I'm kind of hesitant to take that route again.

Then there are the weather savants who think this is going to be not just a hurricane, but a blizzard at the same time.  That would be interesting to see.  I'm getting all my cameras set to go in case that happens.  Then I can have pictures to go with the story when I tell somebody else's grandkids about The Big One (TM).

Sigh.  I'm thinking earthquakes are better to have.  Those kind of just happen, then you clean up and go on with life.  With hurricanes and their relatives, you wait a week or more while you watch the thing approach, lay bets on what track it's going to take, sit through hours or days of mess, and then clean up and go on with life.  Seems to me earthquakes are far more efficient.

Meanwhile, I think I'll stock up on water.  That seems to be the weakest link in the infrastructure around here.  Tomorrow, though.  Have to go to work today.  Life goes on in the meantime.

No need for words

 This was 1983.

This was 2012.

Bravi, Maestri!

Something familiar about this

I suspect that many people will enjoy a book (or a film, for that matter) more if they know the locations where the action takes place, and can relate to what they are seeing or reading in a more personal way.  I felt that way watching the space shuttle making its way from LAX towards downtown LA.

I intentionally did not go to see it on its route, since I find the downing of all those magnificent trees (particularly the ones in Inglewood, with shaped crowns, that used to march proudly down the middle of Manchester) to be painful on a visceral level.  I'm also not a huge fan of crowds and traffic, whatever the occasion.

But one photo kind of summed up the entire event for me, bringing it home to a place which, while I haven't ever eaten there (I don't do donuts), I always welcome as a landmark as I drive by on my way in from the airport.

Welcome home, Endeavour.  When you're ready for guests, I'll be there to see you in your new place!