Life Goes On... So Does Winter

Apparently it's been a while. Been a busy week in Raleigh. It snowed twice in one week and ended with a mini ice "event" that melted when the weather warmed up. The sun has barely been out. I like the snow. One reason I like the snow is that there is "color" when it snows. Yes.... snow has a color it is WHITE vs the usual drab, grayish days Raleigh usually suffers through in the winter. I can't imagine what it was like for people to live here back when... without cable, computers, television. Yeah, they made a lot of crafts..............

Fast Forward to one of my first trips up north to spend a week with second cousins in Long Island and the walls were covered with needlework, embroidery and various crafts. Being young and naive and never seeing so many crafts everywhere framed like art work I said "wow you really love to do needlework!"  Someone looked up at them with an annoyed sort of look and said, "well, there's not much else to do in the winter"

I was 15. Winter in Miami meant a lot of people from out of town walking around and we posed for pics wearing our sweaters and winter clothes. Winter clothes being... sweaters and sometimes really cute boots. You know high black patent leather boots or shorter white Go Go boots with short skirts.

This isn't me below but it could be... 

Short sleeve little summer dress and Go Go boots :)

Only Nancy Sinatra was wearing them in 80 degree weather 

Yeah... winter meant we could wear our boots.

Winter meant only the tourists went swimming (silly people) 

Winter meant we had the Orange Bowl Parade

Life and long term weather forecasting is all a matter of perspective. Some forecasters forecast early on it will be a bad winter or mild winter and then update in real time as weather happens. Snow falls on the forecasters who see a mild winter and hurricanes form despite predictions of mild seasons. Suddenly there is a Category 4 moving towards landfall even though it 's been a "quiet" season. 

Let's take us all back to 1997 not 1967. Forecaster Bill Gray (a man I adore and respect) predicted a strong hurricane season. Then the El Nino of all El Ninos came on like a bunch of wild stallions and WHAM... every hurricane forecaster, tracker and chaser went out of their meteorological minds.

There have been some early whispering on a quiet hurricane season for the Atlantic based on various analog years when the East Coast had wild winters. 

Forecaster + Tracker + Chaser = Weather Stalker

It's simple algebra... one day you'll figure it out

I'm not convinced. Nope. 

It's all a matter of which maps you use...which parameters.

One person sees Global Warming.

One person sees a new mini Ice Age

One person believes both are right.

Some people still use the Farmers Almanac & they aren't even farmers...

Earlier this week in snowed in Raleigh .. ALL DAY... despite a forecast that we would have some flurries in the morning and that was with a "maybe" added into the forecast.

Some people love Raleigh. Other's hate it. That's the truth. I'm somewhere in between on any given day. I don't get the love affair with the Raleigh Durham area other than you can have a big house with a backyard and lots of trees for much less than you can in most parts of the country. There are lots of tech jobs, academic jobs and good old government jobs. It's a pretty boring place. But, then boring is in the eye of the beholder. Some people find planting heirloom tomatoes and then canning them exciting. Some people like the bar scene downtown (they have obviously never been to South Beach...........or have............as I can get a mixed drink here in almost any nice restaurant for the cost of a soda in South Beach... which means this is the world's longest parenthesis and the revelation that people move to Raleigh for cheap real estate and cheap liquor. Hmnnnnn)

This is what it looks like in Raleigh today and almost any day in the wintertime.

Gray. Woodsy. Snow melting.

Shadows on the snow that's left behind.

I keep the colored bottles there

So I can see some color.

It looks like a Stephen King documentary.

Question:

Whey did Stephen King film The Dome in NC?

Cause it looks a lot like Maine.

Except Maine is bright in the winter... 

Seagulls glide above the snow.

Raleigh is really not pretty in the winter.

Unless you stay inside.

Unless you do crafts.

Unless you make lists on what to plant come Spring.

I'm sick of hearing about Spring.

Honest.

Spring is a tease... wait all year for 3 or 4 weeks of color.

But..........I'm here and life is good in many ways.

Tomorrow it's supposed to be in 70s and the sun outside shining.

Hope that's not a blown forecast.

If they can't get a forecast right one day out... 

Why would we really trust a long term forecast for 3 months away?

Promised to blog today and so here it is. Wondering, musing on what will be this hurricane season. Trying to plan when I am going to Seattle in the near future. Hoping to see a few kids this weekend.

I've met some wonderful people here in Raleigh. Sadly, one of them died this week. A beautiful woman named Ella Mallenbaum. Beautiful inside and out... a beautiful soul.

I went to a funeral yesterday. Raleigh has a nice Jewish cemetery. Sounds strange but too hard to explain .. now. Went to put a stone (Jewish custom) by Tom's grave and one by my friend Risa's brother's grave and watched people mourn for a woman much loved. Dirt in NC is red like Georgia Clay. I'm not sure why they call it Georgia Clay cause it looks like that in upstate FL all the way to the Carolina line. It was so cold all week I wasn't sure how they even dig the ground up here in the winter but they do. Amazingly it was warm all things being equal. The flowers haven't bloomed yet, the cemetery is beautiful when the wisteria blooms along the borders and the trees finally blossom. The Rabbi noted Ella never liked people worrying on her or being sad so it was fitting she died going into the Purim Holiday so we won't feel too sad for long. Not easy. Her grandson said his Grandma Ella believed in the universal truths such as Coke is better than Pepsi and she was an artist and then.. he cried. A true Southern woman.... Jewish Mother/Grandma, wife, friend.. It reminded me of the song Dirt from Fl Georgia Line... "and some day you'll return to it. It's life. Enjoy each day, give love... share... laugh... every flower has it's hour in the sun. 

I remember a New Year's Eve when Ella was in remission. They made a party or rather Ella made a party. An old school punch bowl, music on the tape player which Victor got teased on (who still has a tape player.. Victor does) and Ella made her famous kosher crab dip with imitation crab and yes lox and bagels was served (Victor was raised in Brooklyn before moving South) and we drank champagne at midnight and I was eternally grateful for the memory and Ella being alive. I'd bring her flowers sometimes before the Jewish Sabbath. I celebrate her life, her spirit and her smile. 

And, that's life to quote the song.

Today it's gray, tomorrow the sun might come out (according to the forecast) and maybe we will have a light wintry mix on Thursday which will melt fast in Friday's sunshine.  Life goes on.... weather it's the weather or the ups and downs of our lives.  I try to enjoy each day and find some way to smile... or make you think..

Besos Bobbi  

Ps Less than 3 months til the start of the Atlantic Hurricane Season