Hurricane Season 2006 Begins

Will it be a sequel to 2005 and 2004 or..........a whole new ball game?

Will see. As Jimmy Buffett, the patron poet and song writer of most of us hurricane people always sings...

Only Time Will Tell.

But will Will Tell?

That is what I wonder...

Well, William Gray tells and he tells a tale of tropical fever that is extremely contagious for fellow tropical weather watchers.. He predicts many tropical hurricane days or his student Phil does...

So many changes this year.

Seems so many of us are changing jobs, making changes.. moving on...

But, no matter where we move... or what we do or where we go to work... we are always watching, always tracking, always comparing and contrasting this storm with another storm, another year, another track and always sharing info ..

Wearing a nice shirt from the Governors Hurricane Conference tonight... cool, comfortable and has a nice little embroidered hurricane symbol on it. My shirt of choice at the moment.

And.. you know what Anais Nin said about that... I reserve the right to change my shirt often whenever I want or well..something like that.

But Anais only had to worry on Henry Miller and he didn't do hurricanes though I bet if he did..he would describe them down to the smallest detail in his incredible way with prose. Somehow, I bet if Anais could she would... do hurricanes. The girl loved anything that flowed, water, air... her descriptions of forest fires in the Hollywood Hills is one of the best I have ever seen... maybe she did see a storm down in Mexico or somewhere but... I'm in agreement with Anais... life needs to flow like the water... always moving, like the wind...........rushing through you ...at you...

If things didn't flow... this wouldn't be a very nice planet to live on.

Ever stand still in Death Valley under the hot sun painting shadows on the desert floor? I have.

Trust me world.. you want the transfer of moisture and energy from the tropics up to the artic or we would all be spending a cold day in hell in a world without hurricanes.

And, in case Sharon is reading this... Dave Schwartz just showed a picture of boats docked in Portland, Maine and just said how beautiful Portland is :)


I hope and pray this year shows no horrible disasters from hurricane landfalls. I hope that the scientists at HRD/NOAA gather more information that helps them modify hurricanes in the future or better predict where they will go and how strong they will be.

As for those global warming fans.. worry more on weather and leave the climate to those who will be studing it over the next few decades and ...

As for me... most likely I will have a new perch to view the ocean from on my lunch break this hurricane season... one of the best places in the Miami Beach area to feel the wind blow at you, tug at your skirt..your clothes... and watch the surf as a hurricane glides by (hopefully recurving out to sea) but more on that later.

Stay safe... keep a good sense of humor and a good supply of batteries...

Y'all know where to find me in 2006... www.hurricanecity.com


Only Time Will Tell...

And, we won't tell anyone about that toast that was made to the hurricane season of 2006 :)

Avrohom Eliezer Goldman aka Avremie Goldman

http://www.thecampfund.com/

Tonight in NY is a gathering in honor of the memory of Avremie's life and to raise money for kids to go to camp in a special scholarship made in his memory.

He was like a younger brother to me for a few short years when I was living in his mother's house in Crown Heights.

He had an infectious smile, a beautiful voice, a smart mind and a good soul. He touched many hearts in his lifetime.

I was away in the big city studying at Beth Rivkah Teacher's Seminary and I was missing my brothes Jay and Ronnie in Miami and... Avremie became like a surrogate baby brother or sorts. He made me laugh, he teased me with silly things at the Shabbos table or playing with the many locks on the kitchen door. He had the best smile. He went all over town to find tefillin for my brother Jay as a favor to my father who wanted a good pair at a good price that was kosher.

The Goldman home was my home. It still feels like my home even though I rarely visit but when I close my mind I am back downstairs with my best friend, us talking downstairs and running up stairs in our 1970s platform heels to get coffee quick before going to school.

Donate to the camp fund and you will help a child have a wonderful experience this summer and memories to remember forever.

As for me... I'm going to do to some things today that must be done. Mail some things. Sign some papers. Try and get the stuff moved out of the old house and into the new house. Take a shower. Daven. Say Tehillim. Give Tzedakah. Go to the beach and take some pictures. And..............debate what to make/do for Shavous.

KISS as a good friend taught me... Keep It Simple Silly... Might buy cream cheese cake spread and put it on Graham Crackers. Worked during the hurricanes last year, was good... why not do it on purpose? Lox and Bagels. Will see.. I'll figure it out.

Have a good week... give what you can and do it now... don't delay. Chances only come by once in a lifetime sometimes and then they are gone.. whoosh with the wind.

Always, Bobbi
http://www.thecampfund.com/

Money horded is money in a bank that sits gathering interest until you die.. money given for tzedakah, charity gets spread around encouraging small things to grow.

Memorial Day .. a few days before the Hurricane Season

It's one of those 3 day weekend Monday's when you wish you had a good week of this because you want to squeeze in having fun with all the stuff you have to do.

Memorial Day. Moving Day for many or in my case.. "finishing making the move" day. Promised my gem of a landlord I'd try to get it done and I will try. Debating already whether to order in food or take my son to the restaurant directly. All the kids who promised to help are of course nowhere to be found or asleep.

So...here I sit listening to Shakira on VH1 while the Hurricane Season of 2006 lies just dangling beyond the flip of the calendar.

I love to dance. I dance like that actually... well never did get the belly dancing thing down but... boy can I dance.

And... I have notes upon notes to type up for Shuky my son and Sharon my best friend and Jim from the Hurricane Conference I attended last week. So many subjects to think on from the way all those little cells in the eyewall form or don't form and what makes them come together and explode the way they do..and they do.

Amazing imagery the last few years of those eye wall images and those devil like stars that contain the strongest cells. Haven't you all had fun watching, you storm watchers?

How does it feel to look into the eyes of a Cane and know there is such power there that was always known but never seen in such a visual way?

How does it feel to think you know so much about how a Storm thinks, breathes, moves and know you don't really know anything at all. You just thought you did and as you take the pieces of the puzzle and rearrange them back and forth trying to make some sense of it all...

You think you know so much................ yet you don't. Not really.

The ultimate unknown. Still.

And, you sit at your computer desk, typing away, tapping, playing with that mouse until you break it again and again for the 500th time and you do your calculations and run your programs, watch the models and memories in your head spinning around and around and thinking over years of history and all the historic tracks out there... with only the last 35 years or so of important data that can really be used and know you know nothing at all.

Because, in order to really know a Cane.. a Storm.. you have to go into the eye, touch the storm, feel it's fever and hear it's wild wind, it's shrieking sounds.... to really know a storm, you have to be where the storm is... otherwise you are just dreaming, studying, fantasizing and wishing on moonbeams.

Like some daydream dreamer with his eyes closed watching sailboats glide around a perfect sea in the summer sunshine of his clouded mind. Real in your head but when you open your eyes.. it's so far away and it doesn't really exist.

Well, this is Hurricane Country as Jim calls it. The Real World.

We had a bad year, we had a bad day, last year... and the year before... will this year be the same or will they all form and be fish storms curving out to sea?

Stay tuned... keep watching... be kind to your mouse it's tired of taking the brunt of your frustrations.

Get out, feel the wind, touch the storm and listen to it's heart beat.

I'm going to go do a few things today. Clean up. Start over. Plan for Shavous. Write even.

I'm sorry, but Woundsocket sounds like it should be in Georgia. Landlocked. Not me... if I am going to live somewhere it will be by the sea, the everchanging sea and sky.

Love BobbiStorm
Ps. I know. I am mixing my metaphors but they are my metaphors to mix and muse as I see fit.

The Weather Channel

Hi. I got cable hooked up again in anticipation of the 2006 Hurricane Season and my kids being on vacation from school. You figure out which was more important.

So... wow, I have TWC back on again in my room.

And... the rainy season arrived as well...

More later, if I can find time between unpacking and cleaning up to blog some over the memorial day weekend.

Bobbi, listening to TWC jazz again


Good shabbos.. going to my sister-in-laws for dinner
cholent tomorrow, comedy tonight!

Hurricane Research 50th Anniversary

I will blog on this more later. I just wanted to mark the fact, the milestone and to say I was very lucky to be able to attend a series of lectures on that topic.

An incredible afternoon of speeches by Dr. William Gray about the old days of his research onboard planes and flights that were taken while he was stationed on the Azores Islands at air bases there. About how the Storm Fury program was developed that sounded more like Indiana Jones than what we think of today.

From Professor Hugh Willoughby to Nick Shay to Christopher Landsea speaking on the past, present and future of hurricane research to an audience of their peers without media or people passing through was a rare and golden opportunity.

I was invited by a friend who works at HRD to attend

and he promised me I would love some of the sesssions and he was right. I did. I took so many notes.

And, I sussessfully didn't knock any important people over trying to get coffee and cookies during the break. Being squeezed between Bob Burpee and William Gray makes you feel as if you have landed in the land of Weather Oz.

William Gray is funny and an amusing speaker... with a wonderful memory for detail on the early days.

I'll post more on this later. I just wanted to mark the spot and the date and say...

Wow.. very wow... very wild way to start the 2006 Hurricane Season for me.

Bobbi

PS.. Boston Won Last Night

I'm watching, don't think I'm not.

Red Sox were hot last night. Went by a local thrift shop and found my son a great red Redsox tee shirt. All those retired Boston Snowbirds..

I can write, I can loop, I can multi-task.

Just for the record... and I keep remembering the cold front that passed last fall when Wilma blew through.

Warm air, cold air... now we may reverse it.

Either way... Redsox won... and the beat goes on..

Pre-Season Discussion

It's that time of year when a lingering front appears and sits lingering in the beautiful, blue of the Caribbean. And, it makes you wonder if development can be far behind.

http://www.esl.lsu.edu/special_gifs/trop_lant4col.jpg

Tropical people everywhere are looking at that site this morning and thinking, "hmmmmmm" and checking the models to see if any show signs of development in a few days down the line.

As Dr. Gray said, being paraphrased here a bit... "either you are a tropical weather person or you aint'"

And, trust me tropical people everywhere are looking at their sites today and going "hmmmm"

I mean there are two ways you can look at that image.

"Well, we are still having cold fronts in May"

or

"Whenever there is a lingering front in the tropics in late May you have a chance for tropical development out of it"

Trust me, people in tropical places be they in their beautiful office with the big glass window looking out over Biscayne Bay or in their concrete bunker at FIU are looking at their computer window trying to remember what year that was that................ and some guy somewhere is in a meeting sneaking a peak at his blackberry wondering the same thing..

Analog year.... give me a good analog year.

So... either you are a tropical weather person or you ain't..

And, many people I know are staring at that site today, checking around the boards, sending a few weather links to a few friends on line somewhere.

Those who are thinking Canes and not Cannes anyway..

Happy today to someone special and I have to get out of here. Have to go to work. Have to make a to do list and ... have to do the things on it. And..............I'll let others come up with their analog year for when the last time we had such strong cold fronts in late May that lingered in the Caribbean.

And the rains came down and down...

And the rains came down and down and down... across South Florida.. across New England and many places in between.

In Miami yesterday it rained. In Miami yesterday.. it poured.

We had hail at the library the size of pebbles...
bam, bam, bam on the pavement...
somewhere between the size of nickles and pennies.
Little icy crytal pennies from heaven.

It was mesmerizing. The closest we get to snow in South Florida that you can get. I caught some in my hand and popped a few into my mouth, ice from heaven in Miami in May.

I ran through the library as inconspicously as I could... though most of the staff giggled knowing I was watching the first real heavy rains of May. They are used to it. I grabbed Margaret and made her come watch the hail storm. Joined a few women out by the back door who were watching the hailstorm and watching the water begin to bubble out of the street drains like new fancy fountains ... and then the street began to flood.

Flooded all the way across the yard, the sidewalk and up to the first step of the library.

Then the phone calls began...

First my son telling me that the house was leaking like a sieve and he had put buckets under the living room leak, Miriam's bedroom's leak, the kitchen leak that was raining in around the light fixture. Hey..3 bedrooms didn't leak. Nope, roof still not fixed while the landlord's insurance company argues with someone else and it is scheduled to begin soon.

Then my brother called. His roofers finally arrived and began taking the roof off... 2 hours before the rains came down. He had more water pouring through his ceiling than our house.

Then someone else got a call from home at the library...their roof was leaking too.

This would have been the big news of the day at that point... until we started smelling smoke at the library.

Well..not smoke but definitely something was burning. I had to run all over the library trying to find someone "official" to come smell the burning something so we could evacuate the library. The official people were on the phone trying to figure out what to do to get the electric back on completely and to get in touch with the cable company to let them know our computers were down. They followed me into the main part of the library, sniffed around a bit and officially called the fire department and tried to evacuate the library. May I say "try" because a few very persistent, old men really wanted to find the books in the stacks they were looking for and ..................we were evacuating people out INTO the rainstorm.

The water rose out the back door covering the first step completely as the staff hovered around the back porch watching the rain come down and the water rise up.

I told Illiana .. "okay, maybe sometimes God doesn't give much warning before a flood." She's an old Miami girl..Cuban, we have fond memories of May rains every day at 3:30 while growing up just as were let out of school to walk home in the ramin. May in Miami...ah the memories of childhood.

Anyway, the fire department came and went. They looked very officially, sniffing around and deciding whatever burned up in the AC unit must have been done burning. Illiana's son came... she was excited, was fun... he's a fireman. We let people back in, the rains still came down and we worked at half power with no internet, no computers and only partial lights.

Mind you..................it hit me as I sat there...the rains were coming down in New Hampshire and Maine a whole lot worse than they were in Miami. And, the water was rising there a whole lot higher and the good news was... when the rains slowed down the drains began to work again. Can't say the same for New England.

You just can't get away from weather and that is that. The truth. The bottom line.

There is nowhere to run or hide from a natural disaster of some kind shaking your calm little life.

Jim Williams from www.hurricanecity.com went to a workshop at the Florida Governor's Conference on Hurricane Mythology that was given by Dr. Christopher Landsea on this topic last week. The bottom line was .. forget the ice cube being dragged into the Tropical Atlantic and forget dropping nuclear bombs into a hurricane (bad idea) and get used to it. You can't hide from the rain and you can't get rid of hurricanes.

But, we can track them, study them and try to find out what makes them tick a whole lot better.

It's been a good week by me. I made a bunch of decisions. Decided to flip houses for now, trade the one I am in for another one my wonderful, funny landlord owns and try that one for a while. Why not? Easy enough, putting it all in the hands of my 17 year old son who has compiled his friends together to do the move. okay, Uncle Ronnie might rent a truck from UHAUL. However we do it.. we are doing it.

It's very exciting. Very nice little house (not so little) with a real Old Florida feel to it. I like it. The kids like it. Will see how it is to live in it and time to be out of this house and let some other really, big family move into it. I went over there on Shabbos with a prayer book an said Shabbos prayers there, had a snack... had good energy, felt right.

I was on Miami Beach today. So nice to be there. Spent part of my youth there...grew up in ways there... always a great breeze there on the corner of Washington and Lincoln. Watched a lot of summer thunderstorms there.

So, time to finish my week at work. Pack up what isn't already packed up and look foward to next week when the Hurricane Center reaches a milestone of 50 years. Planning on going to a series of seminars next week to commemorate the past and talk about the 2006 Hurricane Season. Promised a friend there I would go and I will. A good friend. I'm lucky to have such good friends.

Amazing...just fifty years ago they began doing their work, their research...we've come so far and yet.. on a rainy day in May, sometimes all we can do it watch the rain come down.. and wonder what the 2006 Hurricane Season will hold for us.

So... okay, okay seems I will stay in Hurricane Country as Jim calls it a little bit longer.

Cholent

Cholent

Well..sort of a mix of things that have been sifting around and stewing on simmer in my brain lately.

I know, I haven't blogged. Sorry, I think I'm back. Not sure.. will know soon enough.

The sounds of the wheels turning in my brain have drowned out any muse that might be musing with me.

Maybe I'm mused out?

Well, no don't really think so.

Think the crazy psychic ex-banker Barry is probably right. I need to go somewhere I love and it will find me.

But where and how and by whose parameters do I choose? My needs, my kids needs... or both.
Do I want them to think this is all their is to life?

I spoke to an old friend this week. She verbalized one of two songs that's been stuck in my head now for weeks..

Freedom's just another word for nothing else to lose... what is the rest of that song huh?

Of course the other song was played on my old piano that I gave to my ex which he needed for "sentimental reasons" (was on the set of All in the Family bizarrely) and is probably still in storage two years after his move north.

Now I am contemplating a move.

Either here... or somewhere else.

And, all my somewheres are North of the Mason-Dixie Line.

And, soon somewhere and someday are going to collide real fast I think.

Life is passing me by and I've been abandoned in the dirt and it ain't the red clay dirt of Calhoun County but the dirt of my own design.

Dusty, dirt.

Not paydirt.

Just dirt.

Mental dirt and too many things to think about.

I have been running a race the last few years and the victory wasn't to win but to stay in the race.

I'm tired of running.

I'm tired of the palm tree outside my window that looked best during Hurricane Frances; dancing wildly in the wind.

I'm tired of hearing people talk about Autumn Leaves and I want to see them for myself. I want to leave..

I hate the birds outside my window. I am a mean, mean, bad girl obviously that doesn't appreciate nature's symphony. It's busier than a Beethoven Symphony and I don't do Beethoven unless I have to..

I walked down to the canal this morning at sunrise. The two hi-rises from Biscayne Landing now frame the view south. Broken pine trees showing their scars and beat up tropical hardwoods still abound. The wooden walking bridge looks more beat up but has served my family well as the children walked across it for years to the nearby Elementary School. There is cheap construction going up everywhere along the canal as people race to add new rooms and fix old houses and repair roof tops before a new hurricane season approaches.

People I know are retiring from jobs. I can't even think on retirement unless I marry a man who is retiring or retired. Maybe I should reconsider golf or fishing just in case... Right, like I would or could retire any time soon.

But, I may get off the merry go round.

I need to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.
My Life.

M for Me
Y for You Aren't In it.

LIFE... for the living.

Okay, make a new list for Sunday morning..

I need a life and someone who wants to share mine... with me.

The kids have gotten older. They are growing up fast.

I moved in here in 1995. It was supposed to be a second chance to start over here with my ex-husband to have a better quality of life than the old broken down mansion I loved on Miami Beach. It was a beautiful, old 1920s rambling house.. mini-mansion that was a mess and harder to take care of than all my kids put together. This house was new, more modern, in good shape and had lots of bedrooms with features that when broken could be fixed by a simple trip to the local Home Depot down the block. When something broke on the old house my ex and I would get in the van, drive over to some salvage place in a bad part of town and hope that someone had recently torn down a 1920s house in Palm Beach and we could find a new window or door or handle for the broken window.

The marriage broke. Almost as soon as getting in this house. The house was in better condition than the marriage it seems.

It was a difficult time for my ex-husband and my children and me, of course.

Just too much to deal with or too many busted dreams or who knows which thing triggered it though a lot of people had their finger in the pot but we won't go there.

Maybe somethings just have a time limit on them... they self-destruct after a certain number of years?

Don't know.
Can't say.
Don't care.

Time to move on..

So...
I have kids who have grown up and moved away and still have a few that are growing.

But, I have ceased to grow even though Aventura and Biscayne Landing have exploded in growth. Well yeah I'm stuck in NMB. Not a great place to be. Not Coral Gables or South Miami or even Key Biscayne....not a place full of history or beautiful architecture. Boring burbs.

I wonder on places I have never seen and worry that I will not be able to support myself in places far away.
I am just afraid. (With good reason)

And, I wonder too much on how someone can get so inside your head and touch you in so many ways and yet be so far away and never here and how of all people I could miss him. This so sucks. He is so not my type and yet I can't resist wondering how he is and worrying on him.

How did my life get so stupidly wierd and I try not to wonder where are the good old days? Where did they go?

I'd trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday... or would I?

Don't know.. can't say... need to go shopping.

Last night I went to Whole Foods with my brother and sister-in-law. A hot date on a Saturday Night there..
And, I bought lavender statice.

I love statice. Sharon calls it a weed. She says it grows wildly in some places up north.
Maybe I should find out where...

Lavender. Not dark, hot purple.. I wondered whether the lavender would be okay? Or too gray or dull or boring... or too soft or too pastel a shade of purple.

know what? It's perfect Matches my tichels from Israel. Matches my mood.

I want to see North Carolina ... Cape Hatteras.

I want to see Santa Fe.

I want to see Portland in the summer and fall... and I want to hear natures call up north and I want to hear the annoying, incessant, sound of my muse, chattering at me making my mind think and my fingers move.

I want to see Brooklyn and I want to see Philly to see what it really is like afterall.

The open road is calling to me and for once this is not a Farrelly fantasy, bathed in buttercup yellow but shades of lavender.

Okay, I'd like to see Nantucket but if I go there... to Martha's Vineyard I will have to go on a bus without Sharon because... she hates it. Go figure, her step-father's parents had a house there... and she hated the house and the whole place. Go figure. Yes, I remember how Linda talked of the Cape when Kennedy died in that plane crash on a foggy night.. I remember more than you want to believe I can forget.

But... there are so many capes to choose from and... they are all calling me lately..

Cape Cod is calling.
Cape May is calling.
Cape Hatteras is calling.

I need money and a method and time to travel. A traveling buddy would be nice too.

Where is my muse today?

Funny.. I know what bizzarely rhymes with...
From a site on songs from Lee Ann Rimes .. I didn't know she sang that song on a CD... and not sure how to spell her name but sure somewhere Lee Ann ryhimes like the librarian that the Reverand fell in love with...
Right song.. wrong person... still it works...

The lyrics go...

Me And Bobby McGee

Busted Flat in Baton Rouge
Waitin for a train when I was feeling nearly
as faded as my jeans
When Bobby Thumbed a diesel down just before it rained
Rode us all the way to New Orleans
When I pulled My harp on out
of my dirty red bandanna
I was playing sad while Bobby sang the blues oh yeah
the windshield wipers slappin time
I was holdin Bobby's hand in Mine
well we sang every song that driver knew
Well Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose
and nothin it aint nothing and it aint free
yeah feeling good was easy lord when he sang the blues
ya know feeling good was good enough for me
good enough for me and my bobby mcgee
from the Kentucky coal mines
to the california sun
well Bobby shared the secrets of my soul
through all kinds of weather
through everything all we done
well bobby baby kept me from the cold
then one day near Salinas Lord I let him slip away
hes a-looking for that home I hope he finds
and I'll trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday to be
holding bobby's body next to mine
Well Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose
and nothin it aint nothing and it aint free no
yeah feeling good was easy lord when he sang the blues
ya know feeling good was good enough for me oooh
good enough for me and my bobby mcgee yeah
impro....etc.

na na na na na na na na na na na hey I said a Bobby McGee Yeah Whoo!