So, it appears that I've been on hiatus for the last month. I know, several people have left me several little "here's waldo" sort of notes yet the truth is I didn't realize a month had passed until one of my son's email asking me about it. Fine, I'm back and posting.
Been a long few months and the truth is it was a long, boring hurricane season. I didn't really want to say that ...or maybe I did, but I would have to look back through the season and except for a few short, brief highlights... it was a really boring, non-event hurricane season with pumped up numbers with questionable storms that might never have been upgraded in the days of Bob Sheets.
All the no-neck storms traced the same pre-programmed patterns around a weird high pressure system and curved out to sea with the exception of the wayward Irene (of course, it had to be Irene that would not behave) that crawled onto the beach at Coney Island bringing flooding rains to New Jersey and upstate New York. People died. People died once again from inland flooding, not from the landfall at Coney Island where all the locals hung out waiting for the storm that never really came.
Much can be said on Irene. Much I won't say here. Many would call it an outright miracle, one minute it was there and one minute the bottom half of the storm was gone, the bottom half when the eye was making landfall. It was like someone, something, somewhere hit that storm with man in the moon gamma rays and it simply disappeared transferring it's energy into rain far away from the center.
I have friends who think it was a meteorological miracle from all the people praying for New York City to be spared. I have friends who think it was weather modification. I have friends who think it was simply a tropical storm going extra tropical at a fortuitous time for the people of the five boroughs of New York. Perhaps the ghost of Jimmy Walker looking down over New York and sending his Bowery Boys angels down to make sure nothing happened to his beautiful city. Who knows? Witches in Manhattan turning the storm into nothing but rain bored with turning the lights purple on Christmas Eve?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7164GuyrEQE <-- Beau James, great movie
New York is blessed. That is the truth. And, whoever we owe the Irene miracle to I'll say a thank you! The one storm that got away, off the beaten track of the multiple, meager, barely there tropical storms that traced each other's tracks around the Bermuda High. Not a lot of diversity there... sort of like North Carolina.
Note, after spending time in North Carolina I understand the meaning of the world "hibernation" as all you want to do on grey days is hide under the cover and read or stare up at the sky waiting for it to turn blue again. And, sometimes it does..like today which is a beautiful day but wayyy toooo cold, but I'll be back in Miami soon soaking up the sun and staring at the surf so am going to try to enjoy the cold and my new Victoria Secret's coat that I bought but haven't worn yet. Yup, that's my coat but I bought the black version of it...goes better with my boots. Who wears beige?
As for the 2011 season that has been touted as "busy" it was busy with weak, barely there storms that defied the models which constantly brought them further west than they actually tracked. Either the long term models need some work or they need to learn how to communicate better with their subjects.
Of course, there was Don, Lee, Harvey and Arlene who all got away and formed to the west of the Atlantic storms. Sort of like the 3 Stooges on runaway with a hot blonde actress :) But, I'm not here to talk about Larry, Moe and Curly though you owe Larry for this post I think :)
I'm a Miami girl and for Miami, except for a great day at the beach watching a very weak Irene it was a quiet, boring season for me when I was busy with other things anyway this fall as I watched babies being born, palm trees swaying in the breeze and other things that went bump in the tropical night. Love watching Turkey Hawks from Moe's patio, circling high in the sky while sipping my morning latte.
Winter is upon us, however it's been a crooked sort of winter so far. Cold out west where the El Nino blew up more of a storm in California than any tropical entity blew up in Florida ...go figure. It is just beginning to snow in places like Chicago and New England, real snow not those flakes that flutter down like white butterflies in the night and that melt upon sunrise. There is the briefest reference, more of a whisper in the 15 day forecast of possible snow on January 1st which I would LOVE to see before heading south but doubt that will happen.
I don't do well in the cold. I don't really understand how people up north do it or why they do it. Even the trees hibernate like the dogwood outside my window that looks more like a tumbleweed in the desert. I have to wear long sleeves and socks, and I really hate wearing socks. I'm not into layers. I'm just not. One of the only things I like about winter up north is that I can see the sky, through the brown, barren trees the sky as it peaks it's way through the pines and I can watch the sun hit the church steeple in the morning and turn it electric white and in the evening I can almost see the sunset and that almost makes it all worth it.
I do understand how people love the seasons... to me they should be like Paris. You visit Paris in the Spring and you go to Vermont in the Fall and the rest of the 50 weeks of the year you sip your Cafe Con Leche while looking down from the balcony on the Intracoastal Waterway and watch the sailboats and yachts moving about and you watch the clouds and the ocean and feel the tropical breeze ruffle your hair.
I'm sort of out of place in winter the way the white bow in her hair here seems out of place and why is she singing about Ipanema and the beach when she looks like she's in a snow lodge in Colorado in the early 1960s? Hey, she may not see now...but if he keeps watching, trust me one day she will see :) Great song. Some of the most beautiful songs were written in the 60s in all genres from Rock N Roll to Brazilian Jazz to Music Themes. Hey it's not Limp Bizkit, but it works for me today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzw1xEcQg4Y&feature=related
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_from_Ipanema
Listen...I appreciate the weather everywhere, though I enjoy winter in Iowa and New York more than I do North Carolina. I'm not a seasons girl, I'm a tropical girl but if you are going to have winter and cold weather you ought to have snow... you know?
So, I'm back. No more hibernating.
Kim Jong is dead in Korea. Finally... now what?
Well, further South in Australia ... storm, starved storm trackers are watching..
http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/tc_pages/tc_home.html
There has been the possibility of a small, midget like cyclone forming off the North coast of Australia around Christmas Day if the models are right. They call them midget, it's a meteorological term not a political statement. All eyes are on Christmas sales and Iowa where Mitt Romney is trying to wrestle the nomination away from Newt and Ron Paul and it sort of feels like the 3 Stooges with Bachman a long for the lone female part in this political movie that has had way too many pre-release, publicity debates.
I'm back. I'll be posting again. Nice little hiatus I started back when Mercury went retrograde and I was busy with other things hiding from writing this and other things I should be working on (never end a sentence with a preposition) and well...will do so.
I owe a special thanks to my friend, my "master" lol because what's a muse without a master? Thank you because you really do understand and know me the way I need to be understood in a way that makes me giggle and stare and come to life in any weather. Merci Boucoup or as they say in Sri Lanka...Stuh-tee ;) Still smiling, trying to get the song Shadow of Your Smile out of my mind so that I can get on to doing the things I need to do today.
The real question of the day is whether the Pope lives long enough to get to Cuba, before Castro dies or after? Heard the Pope is weak, I wish him well and I wish Cuba a Castro free era and that's my "wish" for the day.
Enjoy the scenes from Bell, Book and Candle...a great movie to watch anytime but especially this time of year and especially if you love New York and I do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF82k06DXSA
Besos Bobbi
Ps Thanks for the music and inpsiration... and thanks Levi for the nudge and thank you God for the beautiful blue sky today and my new warm coat and for the melodies dancing in my head.
