Mango Season

It's 88 in the shade and I'm thinking the thermometer is lying.. Feels much hotter. Drinking water, but it doesn't really help when it is that hot. And, so far it hasn't rained today but storm clouds are building out over the Glades.

We have had mangoes on the tree for months. Small ones, medium ones... tons of them. People passing by ask me "are those mangoes?" adding, "your tree is loaded." Yes, we know.. really.

But today... while rinsing something off in the sink I saw the first sign of the changing of the seasons... a semi ripe mango was sitting on the window sill..waiting to be cut open when someone decides it's ready.

It's started.

First mango of the season sitting on the window sill..even has some color on it.

A promise of things to come.

Hurricane Season around the bend... maps in stores, mangoes on window sills... everyone hiding mid-day from the heat and hoping it will rain.

Memorial Day Weekend in Miami.

Sharon is in town.. we did the Israeli restaurant, Jerusalem for breakfast and Big Lots. Seems Maine does not have dollar stores.. go figure.. Maine also doesn't have mid-day heat.. she is home recuperating.

Me? I don't know. I love Miami from the cool safety of the air conditioned bedroom. Not the Central.. the little wall unit I put in the window. Cost less than doing my whole house and there is something comforting about the buzz of the machine, the sound of my summertime childhood friend... bzzzzz sending cool air into the room, making the tropical city of Miami livable all year round.

My great-grandma didn't have AC in Key West or Tampa. She probably also went up north to visit her sister in Philly to get some relief from the summer heat. Maybe not. Maybe she loved it. Maybe after being born in Russia or Prussia or where ever she was born, raised... lived in England.. Key West was Paradise... Gan Eden, beautiful. I know it is to me. Must be some genetic memory left in my genes...

We all have our seasons.. Up north.. fall, spring (so nice, NY is so nice in the spring), winter in Maine...oh wow.. you haven't lived til you have stood by the lighthouse where Wadsworth sat for hours writing (probably in the summer) and stared down into the icy water... so beautiful.

The world is a beautiful place. Each area has it's own season.

Miami has mango season.. a prelude to the Hurricane Season.

Old timers count the mangoes and the blooms as a sign of the hurricane season to come. The tree is laden down with the largest crop I've seen in ages.

And.... a solitary mango sits waiting on my window sill in the kitchen.. waiting to be enjoyed, first of the season.

Sunny But No Hail Yet...

Sort of kind of upset. It hailed yesterday here and I missed it. Chained to the reference desk (just kidding, love it) and heard kids screaming, laughing near the front desk and I bet it was the hail. Didn't check, being busy and all.

My daughter Rivky got hit in the head. She wants to sue and loved every minute of it. Kids in Miami always love hail. As close to snow as we get down here. As she very observantly said.. "it got windy and cold and.. then wham this hail the size of a nickel hit her in the head" She knows what a downdraft is... most Miami kids do. We know a storm can threaten and darken the sky and move vaguely eastward as the seabreeze and landbreeze meet somewhere in between...but when you feel that wonderful burst of cool air.. "run, the storm is about to hit!"

My son Zalmy got home just in time. Personally I think he got soaked and doesn't want to tell me.. but he did make it across the footbridge by the canal on his way home from school just missing the lightening storm. I was worried, love thunderstorms but not when my children are out in them... crossing water.

Miriam is home from senior trip to L.A. She likes Miami better...

Kids would be amused or annoyed I am talking about them.. I rarely do.

But, what else is there to talk about that I can say on this blog?

Saturn has taken its crummy time to get out of Cancer.
Today is the Jewish Holiday of Lag B'Omer...wish I was out for a ride in the country instead of on my lunch break.

While we are talking on Jewish things.. browsing around frumster and jdate sort of sites looking for someone I could maybe meet and spend my life with... I really want to move on, find someone and start over again. As bluntly honest here as I can be for a change instead of talking fluff. Giving up my part-time job as a muse, hanging up the keys to the minds of men who can write without me. Why Frumster or one of those Orthodox Jewish sites? Simply because I need someone who keeps Shabbos and can enjoy that part of my life. And, I do enjoy it. And, in the library here I rarely meet any Orthodox Single men and the few men I do meet who keep the Sabbath usually turn out to be 7th Day Adventists.. a lot of sweet South American and Carribean folk who offer to go out but its the wrong sort of Sabbath for me. The last time I met some really cute, gorgeous Jewish looking guy with a Jewish sounding name.. he turned out to be an Ojibwe Indian. Maybe I should move somewhere.. break the stagnant pattern of my life. A nice life but not the life I really want to live. All the cool storm chasers are usually married or very wierd (but nice) young kids. Met someone online I liked a lot, really a lot but he disapeered... probably thinks I write too much or am too strange or who knows why... shame, I really, really liked him.

So.............here I am.. Friday, on the verge of Memorial Day Weekend, clouds building slowly into the sky. Just a librarian. Not a muse or amused any longer. Wishing it would rain or storm or hail just a little.

I heard the Red Sox are losing... my ten year old "baby" told me.. he follows them obsessively now for some reason... creeps that they are, so do I on occaision. Ricky Williams may turn up in Dolphin Training Camp... I think HE has a more complicated life than I do. Maybe over the 3 day weekend I'll work on my book. Maybe I'll dye my hair...maybe I'll move somewhere...

Great lyrics .. wonderful musical.. Best Little In Texas ;)

Me.. I'll be just fine..
Good Shabbos!
Bobbi

"Hey, maybe I'll dye my hair
Maybe I'll move somewhere
Maybe I'll get a car
Maybe I'll drive so far
They'll all lose track
Me, I'll bounce right back

Maybe I'll sleep real late
Maybe I'll lose some weight
Maybe I'll clear my junk
Maybe I'll just get drunk on apple wine
Me, I'll be just

Fine and Dandy "

Partnership in the Tropics

On topic here.

Everyone is always trying to find the magic bullet when studying Hurricanes.

Dry May, Dry June.

Rainfall in the Sahel Region.

El Nino.

Water Temps.

MJO... water oscillation patterns and other initials that go bump in the night.

Truth is they are only factors in partnership.

I.E. Yes.. if there is more rainfall over Africa there is a chance of wetter, tropical waves coming off of Africa. For sure. No duh. Really.

If the dry May/dry June pattern stays in effect it usually means a massive High Pressure Area has set in and will aim any strong storms this way... South Florida will be under the gun.

El Nino does not bring an active Atlantic Hurricane Season...then again it always seems one or two get through.

MJO has to work in tandem with the wet part of the African Wave season and you can't have some big upper level low out there breaking up the path across the Atlantic shooting storms up the middle of the Atlantic to the Danger Zone for Tropical Storms.

If the big, bad waves get too bad too fast.... whoosh they start pulling too north, don't stay lower in the groove and don't make it across.

Everything has to work in parntership to make an active, busy season. Sometimes some loner storm does his or her thing and creates havoc in an otherwise quiet season. Happens.

Landmasses often break apart a storm, something the models were reminded recently but then again... Georges did not die over Puerto Rico, Hispanola or Cuba on his trek west north west. And, with just a little variation in his track he would have hit Miami not the middle/lower Keys and can that really be attributed to wet or dry May of that year or the immediate steering patterns that week that were steering Georges?

Dr. Gray works on his mathematical equation, so does NOAA and NASA and TWC... we all work on it. Jim works on it. ORTT does... SNONUT does and probably quite a few Tropical Nuts who aren't even registered online.

But no one has yet to come up with the perfect mathematical answer.

I don't think there is one. Climatology works. Atmospheric Science has it's rules.

But on a day to day... hour by hour study of the tropics, it's all very fluid. And, like any good ... real partnership, there is a lot of give and take involved for there to be any real staying power..or to make a lasting impression.

Something to think on tropically speaking as we wait on the brink of the Atlantic Hurricane Season of 2005.

Bobbi

It's a Weather Channel Day

So... as storms race down across the United States.. dancing their way through the plains and the long state of Florida. A Nor'easter from Maine to DC as two dancing lows dance off shore. Friends in Pt. St. Lucie had hail and twisters. Scituate MA is on the news... waves dancing over the sea wall and this is soooo cool.. blowing foam from the waves as the guy from TWC talks, wow look at those waves. OH I want a Nor'easter!

When men break your heart and upset your world.. there is always The Weather Channel.

When you have a mild concussion and are told to stay in bed and rest... there is always The Weather Channel.

When kids visiting from Israel are home fighting with the younger normally calm, happy kids... There is Always The Weather Channel.

When old boyfriends follow you around at work with fake names asking for your help on the computer... short circuiting your brain and making you worry on their sanity, there is always The Weather Channel at home.. resting in bed from the very mild concussion (boy does my head hurt) there is... always The Weather Channel waiiting, green rain falling down in Green Bay. Nice purple suit on that lady. They wear wigs you know sometimes, I know I have worn the same wigs when I was very religiously married.. and wasn't on The Weather Channel.

Wondering what will happen to my hair if I wash it with the Wash and Curl instead of running the Pure Seduction from Victoria Secret's through my waves...

Wondering why they never show commercials for Victoria Secrets on The Weather Channel. Don't they know sensual, sexy women love weather for all it's excitement and intensity.

Yes on days when men break your heart and don't write back and people don't disapeer who are supposedly dead and it is blowing wildly in Maine.. and I am going to hide in bed..and watch the rain blow through..

There is Always The Weather Channel.

Not a bad day, made a friend, went to an appointment... and going to watch The Weather Channel and wonder why I can't see a Noreaster too!

Love to my friends... all of you... even Jay wherever you travel today in Greece.

Love Bobbi

Mary has a message for the little lamb...

Go Away! Go Home! Go All the Way Home! (people probably have been wondering where you've been)

Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200.

Do Not Follow me to Work tomorrow... do not call me and ask me where the Card Shop is on Atlantic Avenue. It was a mistake, a big mistake, I should never ever have sent the card and if I did I should have sent it from Trixie, Dixie or Roxie. My mistake. My bad. Stupid me... you were already following me everywhere.

Do Not Write a New Script with anyone resembling me in it. Write about a pig or a walrus... try the Artic not the Tropics.

Do Not Go on Frumster or JDATE pretending to be from Texas, Oklahoma or Rhode Island.

Go to some Lamb board... look for one of your own kind.

Mary is tired. She is not ever sending out cards again.. means she'd have to get stamps and its too much to remember.

Mary has too much on her mind. She has too much to remember.

Mary wants to do things you don't understand and does not want you to get an additional bachelors or masters degree in.

I have given at the office. I have tried... even the girl scout code would cut me some slack here.

Linda would tell me to pick up, move on and what was that phrase she used years ago, "somewhere there is a man truly worthy of you, he'll show up some day."

She didn't mention me having to be your playmate for life. Did she now?
She would forgive me. She will forgive me. We will have a rollicking time somewhere in heaven, one day... We'll write, we'll sit under palm trees. There will be no such thing as cancer that rips out of your life the one person you love like a sister more than anyone in the world. Or shoots down a young boy who never did anything wrong to anyone ever in his whole entire life (other than to hide my shoes under the shabbos table or pretend to lock me out in the hallway with the 5 locks people in crown heights used to use... and always made me giggle til I couldn't breathe)... yeah, no where in heaven does some idiot kid from another neighborhood come and knife down your make beleive baby brother in a phone booth... or take your make beieve best friend away with Hodgkins Disease.

So... Avremie can sing niggunim in heaven, beautiful ones.. and Linda can wish for me good things and write great plays and win make believe Tony Awards...

I'm tired. Go Home. Do something productive with your life.
That is what God put you on this earth for... to bring down holiness..

Not to stalk, talk your way around the world following Mary who is too tired to even think because you have exhausted her and she is afraid to trust anyone.. cause they might be hired by the Sr. Lamb.lol

Mary no longer wants to write. Mary no longer wants to play.
Mary doesn't want to go to school tomorrow.
Mary wants to start over with someone, fall madly deeply in love and begin again.
Mary wants to do "acts of goodness and kindness"

Let me put it this way Ted, Ron and Lisa... et all... Lamb Incorporated...
in the words of online dating....

Mary is NOT a Pet Person
Go Home..

Adrian and other thoughts on other women..

Okay. There has been so much discussion in the media on Tropical Storm Adrian in the Pacific Ocean off of the West Coast of Central America that school children all over Florida know every little detail about it..."coming on Sunday" (okay)

The mailman asked me about it. At work everyone is so excited that I must be excited that the season has started. Right. Okay. I think some small child in Alabama's first words tomorrow morning may be "Adrian is coming"

Let's get real.

We are coming off of a devastating Atlantic Hurricane Season last year and we are all a little shell-shocked and maybe have the smallest amount of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Just a bit. Finger on the trigger people are ready run for water.

The EPAC season begins May 15th, not June 1st. This is normal for this time of year. The only thing not normal is like wrong way Corrigan lost on Gilligan's Island she is a little mixed up. It is not unheard of but it is rare.

Her signature looks down right crappy on the water vapor loop and even on IR her intensity has waned a bit. So, lets drop the Cat 5 at Mid-day tomorrow forecasting. I think someone slapped up that model silly by now and it's fallen in line with the others or has been prescrible Prozac. Good to fine tune the models on the EPAC systems before we have to deal with them in our own backyard.

Her main danger is mud slides... and if she hits with 75 mph or 65 mph it is the same issue of concern. Huge amounts of tropical rains falling on unprepared small villages that go sliding down the mountains. Especially in some regions where there has been deforestation and there isn't much to hold things together. Small villages with little they can do but hope it doesn't hit their homes too hard or they will have nothing left. Mitch's damage was from long, sustained tropical rains.. not because he hit so strong.

I was a little out of it the last day or two. I have a lot on my mind and my mind is not really here but in some land of hope and possibilities and being amazed at the wonderous things that could happen and the magical hand of powers beyond nature in this world. Hashem. Possibilities, practicalities...patience.. wishing doesn't make it so but hard not to wish on a star or anything you have handy when in the mood I am in. That is the good part... the hard parts is dealing with ongoing details of a life like most of us do.. and so I did what any red-blooded American girl from the babyboom would do.. Watched an old movie. Cat Ballou. Great movie... really great, best comedy I think ever made... in recent times anyway. And, just got lost in it, did what I had to do.. tried not to obsess on the good or bad. Would be nice if you could just wish upon a star..... maybe I did in my way.

So... back to Adrian... my post, my thoughts and will see how she looks in the morning. Do all good things come to those who wait? I've never been that patient where my emotions are concerned. Intellectually... maybe. So.............on with the show. I know I have been a little out of it for my hurricane friends this week but sometimes (smiling) sometimes there is more to think upon on the East Coast than a Tropical Storm in the EPAC that has to transverse a good part of Central America.

Hurricane, chassidus and wishing upon a star... a song and a prayer..

official post... jay if you are out there ...somewhere traveling around Greece on that lecture tour of yours and if you put into a good hotel on their expense account and you get to pick up your email :) and check the blog that I promised to keep going... haha :P

I'm not telling, it's a secret.. send me a postcard from where ever you are.. love big sis..

***********************


Want to say one thing.. besides everyone here stop and think and look at her for a bit.

She is a beautiful storm to watch (lets be honest at this point at the season we would watch anything) ... but although she has nice form and shape.. she seems weak in a few of her satelite signatures. Sort of like a healthy patient with a bit of a weak pulse tonight and think that is where the TAFB was lower than expected and they went with a more conserative forecast on wind speed ... she has yet to be crowned the winner of the Hurricane Award. And, imagine they will be conservative as this rarely happens and much will be reviewed in post season analysis. IF someone is going to go against climo, with a lack of intensity on some sats they will wait til morning to see how she looks. My reasoning on this.

Sorry guys, she is pretty..all dressed up but does she have staying power? Will see in the morning.

Lastly...she has over 250 miles to go at a current slow speed... that could help her intensify however she is close enough to land to have it possibly inhibit her outflow and what are water temps down there right now?

Her path and point of landfall should say a lot on how well she stays together. Check out Jim's topography map he posted, there is great variation in those mountain tops there.

Sorry, not all that excited .. maybe if Adrian was a guy I might be a little more excited. Thanks Jim..

Bobbi

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCPEP1+shtml/181752.shtml

Unable to Blog, sorry I tried

Tried really hard to think of something to blog upon but I can't.

Adrian is in the Pacific wanting to crossover (no jokes) to the Caribbean. Unfortunately Guatemala is in the way. Or however you spell it. Not going to be pretty if it does intensify a bit more.. either way rainfall in that part of the region is not good.

Everyone is excited. Media having a field day. Stories on Armaggadon season of 2005 and I keep wondering if it won't be the season they think they are getting. Remember 1997? hmmmm

Either way.. my mind is elsewhere.. miles and miles from tropical lands thinking on what I want and if I have a chance in hell of getting it. A long shot but I want it.

Bobbi

Been a Bit Quiet..

I know.. Just one of those weeks where you get sort of hijacked off on another subject and lost in space where you feel you are doing very, very good or losing your mind, walking off a nice cliff? Danger Danger Will Robinson? lol

No seriously. Not much going on tropically. SW Carib shooting off nice colored flares but... nothing happening, too much shear.

Some volcano popped it's mind off South America. No one living there but we are all watching.. not much else to watch.

Rained today a bit in Miami.. just a drop to catch our attention.

Mangoes getting bigger and my favorite Jacaranda Trees turning beautiful shades of purple and lavendar. Waiting on the Poincianna Trees to bloom.

Waiting on a lot of things and very impatient a person on some subjects. Other subjects well.. sort of scared witless.. so maybe waiting is good.

Going to go take a shower, feel the water beating down on my head and try to think on something other than what I have been thinking on for the last week, at least for ten minutes.

well you know how it is.. we all have sudden weather that pops up and begs to be dealt with

life is truly amazing, i pray it stays that way

pray it stays that way for everyone and remember one thing

when you love someone, care for them.. you want them to have what they want.. what makes them happy

that is friendship and caring, another else is just controlling and not what friendship is all about..

enjoy the weather...
there is a time for games
a time for the sun to rise
a time for the sun to set
and a time for bobbi to go take a shower

tomorrow starts the EPAC season.. gray is reconsidering the situation
and i wish everyone a safe season
sparkly night outside.. hope the stars are shining bright in your part of the world

Bobbi :)

2 Biggest Lies in the Movie Business

coincidental and unintentional

Silly Questions on Friendship

Someone left me a little present the other day ..for me to find among the racks of books that were donated to the library. There between the biography of Robert Capa and a book on Provence was a book by good old Richard Bach. Some dear Kappa person I know loved Richard Bach and the whole Jonathan Livingston Segall thing. It never resonated with me personally even though I love seagulls and the open water and the beach. I was always more a sandpiper sort of girl...in love with both sea and shore.

And... I imagine they are a bit afraid I am suddenly going to dance away or upset about something so suddenly there are reminders dropped like boxes of tin and glass to remind me they are out there somewhere .. watching from a far.

So the book opens with the question..

"Can miles truly seperate you from friends? If you want to be with someone you love, aren't you already there?"

And, what they never get (maybe because they are used to being far away and watching from there) is..............yes, those miles can truly seperate you and if you aren't HERE... you are in a land called the Past or "Far, Far Away"

You aren't here when I lie in bed at night thinking. You aren't here when I have to wash my hair or decide which day to make it more Rosewood. You aren't here when I have writers block and can't finish my novel but I can spend five minutes amusing them online to give them a new idea for a scene ...and then they fly away like the seagull to write and think and ponder until they need another fish to eat.. swooping down into the water, grabbing it... and flying away again.

IF you aren't here.. you aren't anywhere but in the past, a memory that is hard to forget and that ebbs and flows, like the tides sometimes higher..sometimes stronger..sometimes not remembered at all.

Linda is dead. She died. She is gone. She never got to see the babies be born or hold my hand or encourage me to get divorced when I needed to or to remind me who I was when I forgot. She is here in my heart but she is ... gone, dead.

Mr. Kappa, Kapp, Cappa, Capp, K person is gone.
He works, he makes money, he builds a retirement nestegg, he pays for the good little boys to go to college and study science and maps and he tries not to look back but he probably does. He is a part of the past. Inspiration for movies and screenwriters who obviously have an axe to bear and don't like something about Mr. K.

As the song was sung... you are so far away.

Memories are only memories. Beautiful, sad, poignant and laughable.

They don't hold me at night or give me peace.

Take the book and give it to someone else who agrees with the logic of the book because I don't.

Yesterday I threw out one of Richard Bach's books that also mysteriously appeared on my doorstep while I was cleaning my bedroom bookcase.

When you care..........you show up. When you care.. you don't let someone walk away.
When you care..........you don't sit on a trailer staring up at the stars wishing for Bobbi. You get off the rooftop and you go to Bobbi and you tell her you love her or you crawl back down off the rooftop, go to sleep and go on with your life.

You get off the fence. You can't have things both ways.

In says in Chassidus.. you are never standing still. You are always either climbing up the ladder or moving down the ladder. If you are standing still.. you are not moving up that moment ..you are not progressing towards the top. You have stopped.

Fly away Jonathan Sebastian .. fly away.

As the yearbook said. You go your way. I'll go mine. If by chance we meet. It's beautiful.

Bobbi

Never Try and Predict What a Storm Will Do

Never try and predict what mother nature or the powers that be have in store.

Never try and reason with Hurricane Season..

Sometimes they do what you think they will...and sometimes they do it for just a while and suddenly veer off.

What if Andrew had wobbled left instead of right? Would they be building big beautiful lofts along the shoreline downtown or would scared investors think twice. Been a LONG, LONG time since Miami got the eye of a real storm. Or Broward... which keeps getting lucky.

Luck only lasts so long and all the knowledge in the world cannot predict for sure what a tempermental, watery, windy storm will do.. once it's on the playing field of life.

Thought on this today.

Storms are so much like people.

so... I posted this in www.hurricanecity.com because that's what I do.. post things. I wrote, poetically sometimes.. other times not. I am a writer after all. I see things from not just one side but from two and three.. through the eyes of all the chracters in a story. And, then like the person that I am.. I do what I feel is right, deep down inside. Never go against your gut or that little voice that says "no dont do that" because somewhere deep down you will lay awake late at night thinking you made a foolish mistake and be upset you didn't listen to your gut.

Someone made a comment this week to me. Made me think.

Something wonderful about being 50 that rocks.. and that is... you feel like you can suddenly close the door on the past and you can step out into the future and try to have those things that you missed the first fifty years when you were playing roles, filling obligations and promises made sometimes in haste or without a lot of thought and you have a drive and a passion to really want to get it right the next time around. No settling on what others want you to do because at 50 you know what you didn't know at 20 and 30 which is deep down a bit on who you are, what makes you happy and what you can and can't live with.. or without.

For me.. it's love. I need to be in love.. feel love if I am going to make a committment to starting over again. I've been practical. I've been purposeful. I've been a lot of things.

Like minds are nice... but bodies have to match up late at night and energy has to flow from one soul to another. Someone can steal your mind but not your heart or soul. You can't have one without the other.

It's all so complex.. like trying to understand hurricanes and things that go bump in the night.

Another friend told me years back online.. one of those simple little sayings that people put on their profiles to define themselves. "I settled for a penny and a penny was all I got" well like.. yeah, duh :) We are so foolish when we are young or just not developed yet as people.. fending our way through life, through our dreams and our parents dreams and everyone else's schemes..

And, only a fool would think they could predict what another person or storm will do.

My father...always said, never bet on people.. there are too many invariables. Bet on the dogs.. not people. And, I am not a gambler with money but we all gamble with our heart, don't we? Those of us who have a heart and who don't operate like a computer program.

So...here's my post from Hurricane City which is where I currently live online in tropical realms. Unless one day I give up hurricanes for ice storms or noreasers or windstorms or duststorms but always some sort of storm. St. Barbara, patron saint of storms.. how did my mother who was so Jewish know something like that? I guess it's just the fickle finger of fate.. God's play.. They say when a child is born that God gives the parents a sort of prophecy to know what name to name them.. We can drop the saint part, skip right back to Bobbi...my little nickname I chose when entering Coral Park and deciding to drop the E once and for all even though it seems to have started a life long attempt at convincing my friends there is no E.. in my name... in my life... Just Bobbi.

What is in a name?
Romeo where art thou Romeo..

Have to add one last thing.. on my little blogger here that mostly is just for me and Jay and a few other people who know about it..

Everyone always thinks Shakespear wrote the following words.. I guess they sound so wise.. but they are wrong...

So...let me set the record straight..and then move on to tropical things.
****************
"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!"
Sir Walter Scott
****************

Never try to reason with it.. or bet on it or even try to predict them... just hang on for the ride.

Hurricanes like people have their own complex set of rules for life. We can study all the factors, all the past seasons, factor in this season's patterns and still not predict what they will do when they actually happen.

But we love to study them, watch them develop and spin their way across the water.

We are all sort of intensity freaks here in a way. Some scientifically minded, others spiritual, others looking for thrills and others just mystified that suddenly something can come together from nowhere and form an entity and travel across the oceans with a mystery and a beauty all its own.. each unique, like you are I. Hard to understand, hard to define, hard to predict.

Only a fool would try to predict what a storm will do in any given season.

It's one of those push come to shove sort of times.. no reason or rhyme sometimes and after the fact.. when its all over and done with.. you can sit down and take it apart like an autopsy on a sudden death and see why it played out the way it did. Of course you need a body for an autopsy and you need a storm to start tracking.

But, before or as it is happening.. not always so simple.

Those of you betting against the Bermuda High falling into place.. I'd put your money back in your pockets. I love to look for those storms like Betsy that do their own quirky thing but truth is Climo wins out the same way the odds are usually stacked in the favor of the house winning.. almost always.

No..there is no BIG BAD BERMUDA high yet.. no, we might not get 4 storms in Florida tracing tracks around the state.

But, if all else is in place we will have a season and I would bet a pretty active one. Maybe an early storm and then waiting day by day for something to pop in late August while everyone here begins to bite everyone else's heads off. You've all seen it before.. don't say you haven't.

And.. I do think there will be a threat to South Florida and a higher than usual chance that the mid-Atlantic through Long Island and all the way up to Maine may have a flirt with danger or even disaster. Very possible. In a year where every storm has turned in to meet with fronts pushing down and over from the Great Lakes.. could happen, could pull the yet to be formed storm in as opposed to out.. before racing off the the Outter Banks.

And, North Carolina will get a storm.. don't they always?

EPac will have action, maybe SW Carib.

Just spent the day thinking on life and thinking how funny it is that scientifically minded, chess playing type of left brain people who feel that if they study hard enough, read every book there is to read and google every site there hasn't been googled before can ...will figure out what a Storm will do in advance and bet their lives and life savings on their theories. Buy a generator? Move to Alaska. Build a bigger bunker or find a safe room to hide in.

I have one message for all of you to think upon when you think you have decided what this season will be like and what the Storm will do...

Don't bet on it.

Ain't no reasoning with hurricane season.
Storms follow their own paths because some little thing that you haven't factored into your perfect little equation has an influence on the storm you can't see by watching it on website, or weather type cam. You can't always see INSIDE the storm's eyes... it's heart.. they all have hearts you know? Beating down there somewhere under stadium effect eyes and stars in them ..swirling about.

Remember what a mess Debbie made that year you all thought you were so wise to play games with mother nature and make predictions so far out... it sure looked like a done deal, didn't it? Oh, she succeeded for a while but... she never had staying power did she?

And, Georges... oh I remember the predictions on him turning by the islands, the Virgin Islands, Hispanola.. before Cuba.. chug chug chug.. he waited to turn til he wanted to.

Sometimes the RedSox win the World Series.

Sometimes a horse wins the Kentucky Derby as a 50-1 odds.

Sometimes 4 storms hit Florida and other times they don't.

Sometimes miracles happen and somethings we mortal fools try to predict what the future will bring.

Everyone take care, and have a good year.. season.. Bobbi
**************
Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

--From A Midsummer Night's Dream (III, ii, 115)
http://www.allshakespeare.com/quotes/353

Bobbistorm..who once upon the time was BobbiCane.. a name I didn't make up oddly, but my ex-husband did.. what is in a name? Bobbistorm is better.. but, its just a name..

Enjoy the weather..where ever you are...

Thoughts on The Anniversary of My Father's Death

For those who don't know me (is there anyone reading this that doesn't know me? seeing as its not really a big advertised site)....

My father died a year ago today on the Hebrew Calendar. It is what we jewish people call a "yahrzeit"

You commemorate it by at the least.. lighting a candle. I bought a nice blue one, 24 hour one and lit it earlier.

It's the first time I have had to use the term "his yarhzeit" and it sounds funny. It sounds odd. It sounds sort of sad and depressing if you must know.

Death is hard issue for me to talk about. I saw a lot of it early on in my life. When I was 13 my uncle died and he was closer to me then ..than my father was throughout my life. We lived in a duplex.. my aunt and uncle practically raised me. I was the lucky product of a large extended family ..a cocoon of love and someone always there full of quirky Southern Jewish types that would fill up a Tennessee Williams play or a Flannery O Conner short story. Faulkner had nothing on my family even though we didn't live in Mississippi.

My uncle died, my best friend Terryl died the same year.. one of those families riddled with cancer til almost everyone died before they were 30. My grandmother and grandfather died the next year within a year of eachother. For a few years in the late 60s I was afraid to love someone.. they might die. Sort of got past that but not without it leaving its scars.

When I was 22 and expecting my first son.. my best friend in the whole world ever died. Linda.. sort of a set back on the death thing, huh?

With time... I got past it. But, I rarely had to deal with it or dwell on it. Death existed..a part of life.. out there with no specific known date just around the corner.

Maybe I would have loved Ed more if I wasn't afraid he too would die. Maybe like some protection on his life I would just stay in Miami and not travel north to Gainesville. Maybe it had nothing to do with death and I was just afraid to believe in.. that he loved me so much.

Comes a time in life you have to be honest and open and I'd rather set the record straight here than having people believe creative copy cat stories elsewhere.

Maybe.. I felt my wings were clipped when my uncle died because my father wasn't there for me at that age like my uncle had been.

My uncle... told me when I was young that I could do anything I wanted to, be anything I ever wanted to.. because I was smart and beautiful and determined and special. He sang Blue Spanish Eyes and Granada better than anyone I ever heard do it professionally. He defended people who really were innocent and got them off of murder charges.. for free as a favor and then they left a beautiful Spannish Guitar for him on his doorstep as a thank you present. Beautiful guitar. He was a Gator fan, through and through.. made Ed looked bad. He taught me to sing the F L O R I D A fight song when I was a child.. F L O R I D AAAAyee

Oddly... most likely because he did die... I was left with my father. A quirky, funny, smart man who could detach too much and loved company on long rides while working. Always in my uncle's shadow and always jealous of my uncle Oscar. My Uncle, a very secure man emotionally never said a bad thing ever about my father.. he always told me how smart he was, how he was a late bloomer.. an under achiever and he'd go far with time. And, he did...

My father loved Jai Alai and "The Dogs" but more from a love of the game of Jai Alai and more out of the odds involved in gambling. He was not a big gambler but he was a big mathematician. Everything in the world was divided up into numbers to him.. 3 nurses were in earlier, he had two cookies .. everything had a number.. a value.

He always said he couldn't make a living at Jai Alai.. no one could because people are not as predictable as dogs. A man has a shitty day with his wife and kid at home, doesn't get any sleep and it throws off his game. A dog runs... he's trained to run and short of an injury.. he runs.

He became Orthodox-Religous at 40.. like a few other great Jewish Scholars. He stopped talking about Jai Alai and began going to minyon (prayer services) and for the first time ever.. was home one day a week. The man was restless.. like the dogs, always running. He had a county job, did work on the side, drove a taxi, fixed stop watches... gave up the county job for a bank job... kept working on the side until he quit and opened up his own Appraisal Practice.

And, like Uncle Oscar said... he was a late bloomer. He became President of two different appraisal organizations. He was a special master. He was known as one of the experts on land and real estate values in South Florida. People at the temple loved him. He served on the Board of Directors of a local school.. worked for it in different ways. Taught real estate at night school. And, in his older age.. middle age.. he finally became close to his kids who were old enough to talk to and go for long drives with at night.

And, we loved him. My brothers more than me because they didn't know our uncle, he died when they were young and because they spent more time with him.

I was always busy.. at school, in clubs, dating, with friends.. in love.. just busy. Going for long bus rides with Linda or sitting out under the Palm Trees at school pretending to be in the library writing novels...

My brothers really had my father in a way I didn't. And, yet.. I was Daddy's Little Girl always.

Years later when I was grown, married and living on Miami Beach I'd walk in on my father working in some restaurant as a kosher inspector (semi-retired, always running like the dogs) and he was sitting by some tourists amusing them with stories of Bobbi in highschool. About Key Club and being a sweetheart of the club and all her boyfriends.. Ed, Joe.. Linda and Debbie and Leslie and Richard and... he went on and on. They were amused. I was mortified.. "Daddy, Daddy.. why are you telling these nice people visiting Miami things about me?" And, they would smile, reassure me it was all interesting, he was so nice. help... He always said those were the happiest days of his life when I was in highschool, all those kids coming and going. Glad I could make him happy.

He always liked Ed. Called him a "fine young man" Liked Joe.. though he thought he drove too fast. Was like my mother jealous of Linda ...but everyone was jealous of Linda in my life.. Joe, Ed and her sister.. my mother, Debbie most of all. And, he wanted me to marry Richard.. I am sure.. everyone did. I probably should have .. he was one of the finest boys I knew and..............he could actually play Jai Alai, played well.. no not gambled.. played.

And......my father was a good Grandparent. The best. Very good. The kids loved him, respected him. He was oddly closer to them than he had been to me and my brothers when we were young. Some people age better with age... they mature... they relax, they learn how to stop running and have fun.

And... he got Alzheimers. Like his older sister did. Like a couple of us probably will get.. give money for research (paid political advertisement here) and... then slowly he was gone. Yaffah got to meet him.. feel badly, because he wasn't in one of his best moods that day and I couldn't even get a kiss out of him at the nursing home though.. usually he always kissed me. And, Yaffah looked sad and I regretted taking them but.. well, such is life. Yaffah and my father had a lot in common. Long road trips throughout the city, a quirky sense of humor and a good and kind heart and the ability to laugh through anything at life's silliness...

My father used to say variations on this theme. God.. has a sick sense of humor. And, he would usually say it with a tear rolling down his eye in laughter.

My friend Lanny Smith told me today about someone else... a friend of ours who passed away last week that I should envision him dancing in heaven in the rain with the angels.. or something like that (don't quote me, its in my work email) but... it was a beautiful thought...and I suppose I would like to think of my father in heaven, laughing at God's sick sense of humor and remembering again all of Bobbi's friends from highschool and wondering why he bet that trifecta at Jai Alai when he should have bet the other. I hope he is davening (praying) in heaven for me and all of us because trust me.. I specifically could use his prayers. Sure Ed and Joe and whoever is left standing can use them too.

He was a good man, he lived his life the way he wanted to and granted he didn't push himself as far as he could have.. he didn't die at 47 like my Uncle Oscar did who didn't get to watch me and prod me along in life and he didn't get to watch Spurrier win titles or quit as coach.

Uncle Oscar is up there in Gator Heaven somewhere.. singing Granada and my father is in University of Miami Heaven.. rooting for the Detroit Tigers and thinking God has a sick/funny sense of humor.

And..that is the way life is.. it's real and you can't fake it. Even in death Uncle Oscar's death shares top billing with my father's because they were both my fathers in ways.. they helped make me who I am today. I loved them both tremendously. Two I suppose can be better than one though never the same. Just like Ellison's death reminded me again of someone else... and even in his death he didn't get sole billing... he had to share the memories with someone else. Sorry.. but true. Such is life..

One road brings you to another... just because you travel one doesn't mean you don't remember the other .. unless of course you end up with Alzheimers and then maybe.. you remember it again in heaven, dancing and singing in the Rain.

Thoughts on the Anniversary of My Father's Death ..

Bobbi

Song for Lucky Today... great song, says it all

so cryptically... beautiful, like only Jimmy could write...

hope it rains again today, hope it pours...
hope i become inspired and figure out what to do today
great line: If you think this songs confusing you should see it through my eyes


OFF TO SEE THE LIZARD Jimmy Buffett/Jay Oliver
I was raised by a maid who came from Martinique
She wore geckos round her neck and bracelets on her feet
A superstitious woman from the land of sugar cane
She'd sing the sun to bed and dance out in the rain
Dance out dance out dance out dance out in the rain

She'd excite us with his legend that the
Africans had told
About a red iguana who turned lava into gold
We'd mount an expedition headin' out into the bay
Superstitious children playing pirate for a day

CHORUS

Off to see the lizard
Off to see the lizard
Deja deja deja vu, believe it
And it will come true
Veja Veja Veja du
What works for me might work for you

Bein' rich and famous seems to have its ups and downs
That's the price you pay for being troubadours
and clowns
Godzilla's halitosis it be vaporizing cars
Elvis up in Michigan or maybe out on Mars
Dance out dance out dance out to the stars

But livin' in the briar patch ain't what it appears
Sooner or later you gotta face your fears
I heard it from the parrot verbalizing in the tree
I heard it in the songllines of the aborigine

Off the see the lizard
Off the see the lizard
Deja deja deja vu, believe it
And it will come true
Veja veja veja du
What works for me might work for you

Does it work for me?
Yeah yeah
Will it work for you?
Yeah yeah
If you believe it will
Yeah yeah
It will come true

I got problems wif my brain underneath my curls
Problems wif Loraine and all the other girls
Love a wealthy woman and the pretty plane she flies
If you think this songs confusing you should see it through my eyes
Dancin, dancin, dancin through my eyes

I'm turning off the waterfall the tourists can go home
Feel it time to travel time to write a poem
Time to seek some therapy I'm goin' walkabout
Answers are the easy part questions raise the doubt

Off the see the lizard
Off%2