Labor Day Vacation - Tropical Storm Lee does Nola & Hurricane Katia Intensifies

Cliff Notes in the tropics....

Tropical Storm Lee made landfall in Louisiana earlier this morning. No one is sure if he stays onshore soaking the bayou and the beaches or if he is going to bounce south back into the Gulf of Mexico as the models are not in agreement and they are taking a holiday from agreement.

Hurricane Katia is spinning in the Atlantic moving closer towards a slim chance of a landfall along the beaches of the Carolinas later this week. She is going through a possible rapid intensification period where she may prove those models right that called for her to be a Major Hurricane later in the forecast period.

Models right now look like what we used to call "mishkabobble" when kids made scribble scrabbles for art work in Pre-School. One model goes right, one goes left and the National Hurricane Center draws a line and a cone down the middle.

And, today is smack dab in the middle of the Labor Day Vacation when I am very grateful that we are not tracking some rapidly intensifying Major Hurricane that is not bearing down on the Florida Keys as one did back on Labor Day of 1935. On that date in history hundreds of workers, American Veterans given the job of working on the Overseas Highway were swept out to sea along with many locals who were out enjoying what seemed to be a beautiful weekend. They were not lucky enough to have the great hurricane forecasts that we have now in the year 2011 from the National Hurricane Season. Remember them on Labor Day and appreciate how far we have come in hurricane forecasting.

Yup, it's Labor Day Weekend!

Am I the only one who finds it strange that the way we celebrate Labor Day is by taking a vacation from work?

Either way it's a great day to sit back and relax with family or alone with the pooch or take a drive out to (fill in the blank) and to stimulate some local economy with a little bit of your hard earned cash.

Up north winter is coming. Down south it's the start of SEC Football Season. In the tropics it's the heart of the Hurricane Season. For kids it's back to school. For people in New England it's a race for the pennant and watching the Red Sox move closer to the World Series.

If you live near a beach....go to the beach.
If you live near the mountains...go to the mountains.

Or... just stay home and enjoy whatever you enjoy most in life. And, ENJOY IT. Live it, love it... don't just sit around on the sidelines wimpy and wondering what to do. Do what you love.

As for me, I'm in bed wrapped up in a towel after taking a long morning shower, after a walk outside around sunrise and halfway through the Sunday paper. Looking for some good Sunday morning News show or just listening to the jazz fest on TWC as Lee spins at the bottom of the screen on what looks like the old BP spill watch, around and around he goes.

Not much is happening, a squall at the New Orleans airport just gusted 55 mph. We get those every few days in the summer in Miami in a thunderstorm. They are getting too much rain though and it's raining on the Labor Day festivals. Mike Seidel has his regular perch at the river's edge with the bridge behind him. You could probably piece together a lots of old footage of him there over the years in different storms and watch him age slowly :) It's okay, he's aging well..

Later I have vegetables on my plate, whatever really good vegetables I can find and some creative vegetable soup I'll make while doing my thing with my guy here in Carolina this Labor Day weekend.

What's your thing? Why aren't you doing it?

Today is a vacation from Labor and a celebration of the American worker..or anyone living in America working. Time for a holiday, one last summer holiday before the cold chill of Autumn begins to settle in.

The football season is so close I can smell it but this Sunday the gym is closed (no Bollywood class) and there are no real football games on TV and it's a day to just hang out, relax and possibly listen to the music.

Lee is swirling about in the Gulf of Mexico, still just off shore, still going every which way he can according to the models. It's like 7 blind men and an elephant all over again.

Katia is like Irene all over again and I'm beginning to believe that she is going to get a whole lot closer to the Carolinas than anyone here wants to see except for possibly me. I missed the earthquake, I was in Miami for Irene..I'd like to go to the beach later in the week and watch the waves as she comes close before turning just off shore and following the path of many a hurricane before her. Time will tell if she's a flirt or wants to cross the finish line.

Another storm is supposed to form down in the Caribbean in about 10 days time, it keeps showing up on long range models and if it pans out it will be one massive, major storm not some "not sure which way I want to go" tropical storm.

I've spent a lot of time traveling this year. I am not the world's best traveler, but I am learning. Most of all what I am learning is that there is beauty everywhere and sometimes the little spontaneous things you find are as wonderful as the tried and true favorites.

Maryland has great O-U Kosher Crab Flavored Potato Chips in almost every gas station or truck stop. What is that all about? But, seriously how can you pass up Kosher Crab Potato Chips?

Delaware is a beautiful state, absolutely beautiful. Farms as far as the eye can see, I could have convinced myself I was lost in Iowa somewhere... but no we were lost in Delaware. Old homes, turn of the century homes that you would think you'd see in Cape May or Key West but on a main street in Delaware.



Miami is beautiful, Miami is home. Miami is a cosmic adventure in Caribbean splendor alive and well in the United States of America. Whatever you want in the way of tropical delights you can find in South Florida.

Carolina has it's own beauty, though I think it's more beautiful along the coast. Azalea and Crepe Myrtle cover the lawns and decorate the highways the way bougainvillea decorates Miami in a fusion of explosive, intense color.



And, Crown Heights is forever the home of my heart. I can get lost walking up and down the hills of the Heights staring at rows of different style homes lined up one by one as if they were designed years ago just for a photographer to come and take pictures. Gentrification has come to Crown Heights and the city is planting sunflowers on the island they built in the middle of Empire Boulevard. Did you know on a clear day in Crown Heights from the roof of a condo you can look down on Matisyahu's home and out across Brooklyn into Manhattan and stare at the Empire State Building? Crown Height's is today is not yo mama's Crown Heights ;)

So.... find your center, enjoy your day and keep an eye on the tropics because we are very lucky this Labor Day Weekend that no Category Five storm is not bearing down on a beautiful beach about to rip someone's life apart.

Later this Labor Day I'm going to organize and post some pics from my summer vacations and I'll talk more in depth about the meteorological madness that is forecasting two tropical systems that seem to still want to do a tropical tango. As for me, no tango today because the gym is closed... no zumba... no work and no labor.
I could explain that the stagnant weather patterns are about to change ....but that would be too much like work and today is a holiday for me, even from the tropics.

Then again, 21 years ago on Labor Day I gave birth to my son Menachem Mendel :) Which just shows a mother's work is never done even on a holiday. Mendy was worth giving up the vacation day I may add...

So, unless you live down in the Bayou or along the coasts of Alabama or Mississippi or the Big Bend of Florida... go out, enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the weekend. Again, somewhere someone is sitting shiva for a loved one, somewhere someone is giving birth, somewhere in NJ, NY or Vermont someone is trying to clean up from Irene, somewhere someone is forced to work a shift today and can't be with their family... give thanks for what you can do and take a day to remember the American worker who gives their time and hard work to help build this great country and to bring home the vegetarian bacon and feed their families and pay their mortgage and so take a holiday today and tomorrow and pray for those who need a job, pray for those who are too depressed to open their eyes to the sunshine and enjoy life and pray for us to stay safe from Katia and the storms that form behind her because it's only just begun to be prime time in the tropics!

Besos Bobbi

Enjoy the Zydeco music in honor of Tropical Storm Lee's vacation to Louisiana on Labor Day Weekend of 2011..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRRW3aine6Y