Wednesday, Day 17 Since Being Home Since My Son Grounded Me ;) Florida Gov Finally Issues Shelter in Place. What Is Normal Anymore?

True Confessions Time.

Yes, I watch him every morning.

I had issues with him in the beginning.

He definitely got with the program.

He's been a calm, reasonable voice.

"No one knows for sure when this will be over"

So true.

People hate the unknown....

...people hate living in limbo.

I've been home for 17 days.

And, honestly I'm fine.

I can deal with reading and being online.

Love researching, writing, cooking.

My oldest son grounded me.

I suffer from asthma....

...I'm prone to bronchitis.

So I have to be more careful.

Otherwise.. I'm fine.

Glad my last trip was Seattle... 

It was a beautiful trip.

But now I'm home, staying in.

Doing my thing.

We all have to do what we have to do...

That's the reality of right now.

This minute, this day, this week.

As for me I'm blogging...

...blogging as in writing a long blog.

Note shortly I will talk on the tropics again.

We are 2 months until Hurricane Season.

Hate to mention that but you can't hide forever.

As I'm typing I'm multi-tasking obviously as I'm watching the Governor with the sound down turning it up here and there when he says something very compelling; his images and graphs kind of tell the story without the sound. I'm listening and trying to pay attention to a class I have on the phone with friends in Crown Heights on Chassidus and we are saying prayers for people we know who are in the hospital battling the most severe effects of Covid-19. And we are staying connected as best as we can during a time that isn't an easy time yet it's a time that as long as we have our health we can cope with not running around to all the places we are so used to running around to when living a normal life. And, yet this has become slowly normal too even though it's not a normal we wished for but we are stuck with for the time being. 

I have a friend that posted this on Facebook the other day and he's not one to post very often, but when he has something to say he always nails it. This is so true and it's something really worth thinking on while we are secluded from our normal routine to realize that my ex-husband mentioned recently that despite living in busy NYC he can suddenly hear the sounds of birds and Spring vs the sounds of traffic that drown out the beauty of the world that hear often in Raleigh.  And, yet even here in Raleigh on my quiet street I can still here some traffic off in the distance usually but not anymore. Some people like the sound of traffic but when you realize you don't hear it suddenly it somehow hits home. In Wuhan the ever present smog and pollution disappeared and blue skies were seen for the first time in no one can remember when after they shut down the area to fight the illness that has traveled around the world.

Things I've learned or remembered or thought on over the last month or so.

When Romaine Lettuce begins to go bad... you can cut the darker part off and it lasts longer.

When you cook a huge turkey breast, you can save the large bones and use them to make soup.

Old Coffee in the Coffeemaker makes great Iced Coffee once put in the fridge.

Pick up the phone and call a friend and hear her voice rather than type fighting with auto correct.*

Plan out my day carefully because time lately moves fast and when you look up it's 2 PM... 

We've thought back on our lives and remembered the good and made lists of what we'd like to fix.

I really can't wait to go to Myrtle Beach again or sit and talk with a friend at Starbucks.

The list goes on and on.

*My friend and I raised our kids while talking on the phone nonstop all day on a phone with a long cord that was 25 feet long and got caught on dining room chairs, children and toys often. Our kids got used to the fact that we were on the phone nonstop talking about "the school" or hurricanes or projects we were working on for a group called Neshei Chabad that was a Women's Organization. Somehow with all our kids and work responsibilities we were responsible for putting on all the programs in South Florida from classes, trips to visit old people in nursing homes to fundraising fashion shows in mansions on the water with backdrops you see in fashion magazines to cooking for older people who were shut in recently released from the hospital but their children who lived far away called some Rabbi on Miami Beach who called us to ask us if we could send over broth every day because they could not eat solid food yet and yes we did and to be honest looking back I'm proud of the good things we did... while talking on the telephone all day on long corded phones while raising our children. Seems I was born to multi-task. 

Don't get me wrong we were not Saints but we did good deeds and we had a lot of fun laughing at things that happened while trying to get things done as life sometimes just gets in the way in the craziest of ways when you live in Miami. We had planned a large program for the World Premier of a book just being released by an author that many wanted to read with a large meet and greet at a local Synagogue and then a smaller breakfast to discuss raising children to be held outside at a beautiful home someone always lent us by the Bay with a huge lawn to set up chairs and tables and........while arranging this.... after paying for all the things needed Channel 7 News put out a bulletin that there was an Encephalitis Alert and people should wear dark clothes and stay indoors. I think it was 1990... who remembers? We looked at each other in terror than laughed hysterically until we had tears in our eyes. What else could possibly happen next?  Spoiler alert... it was lifted before the night of the large program with 300 people attending and luckily it wasn't hurricane season; life in tropical Miami.

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/health/fl-zika-encephalitis-outbreaks-florida-20160812-story.html

I was once sitting at the water's edge in the Florida Keys at a small motel my friend owned watching an Ibis wander through the mangroves, dangling my feet in the water and this huge old plane appeared out of nowhere flying low... very low over where I was sitting enjoying the quiet moment in nature and then I realized it wasn't a scene in some old TV show I used to watch but ... they were spraying mosquito poison everywhere the way they did when I was a little girl before they stopped spraying for mosquitoes all the time because they found out it wasn't much healthier for humans than it was for the mosquitoes that seemed immune to it anyway. When the cars were not covered in mosquito spray with ingredients now outlawed from use they were covered in gritty red African Dust aka SAL and no the Chamber of Commerce in Miami never advertised that when Jackie Gleason said Miami was the Greatest Place on Earth. Life went on..

But we haven't seen anything like this in many moons and generally only seen in the movies. Jim Williams was talking the other day on how similar this is to the movie Contagion. Many online have mentioned that and wondered how that could be. It's easy in that whether you realize it or not people are always and forever researching how to battle Germ Warfare or the accidental release of a germ that is being studied into the general population that is prone to mutating. Really I took two different classes in college on Germ Warfare for my degree in International Relations; one was a compare and contrast on the reality of that occurring vs the release of nuclear materials or a nuclear accident and the other class was in description of the most deadly designed viruses and how it would impact the public both financially and politically. Expanding on that last class the most dangerous was one that would impact the lungs and attack older people thereby taking out the structure and fabric of society both economically and more so politically. Basic classes for people in various fields of study such as International Relations. Haven't seen the movie, it's on my short to do list though my husband did a while back when I was out of town as normally I hate scary movies but this is one I do want to watch.

So my friend who was going shopping anyway bought some groceries for me carefully... brought it here leaving it outside. I watched as she sprayed all the paper bags with disinfectant and we talked from a distance me inside her way outside wearing her mask and gloves and it was good to see her and as she left she said "can't wait for us to be able to just go out to Starbucks and sit and talk" and yeah that would be normal and nice. Then I put the stuff out onto the balcony as it's cool today and tonight, carefully washed down a few products to put away for Passover and there's some lettuce drying on the counter on a towel for my husband's salad. I'm pretty sure I got all the soap off the various produce. Hmnnn Is this normal?

My friend in the hospital went home last night, actually I was friends with her mother and my aunt but now I follow her on Instagram account Busy in Brooklyn where she shares incredible recipes. My friend Devorah Leah who lives in Crown Heights who usually teaches our phone class is still in the hospital but said to be stronger today and hopefully she will be home for Shabbos before Friday Night. Then my daughter sent a message that our friend Yudi's mother in Crown Heights was taken to the hospital and the list goes on. I spoke to my best friend at 2 PM or 2:45 after I got done disinfecting everything and taking a shower and we talked on life and compared notes and well no more long 25 foot cords but still laughing and talking and being honest with each other and that's good.

So from my house to yours... I wish you bananas and strawberry jam and apples and candy and that you and your loved ones live through this and we all get back to sitting at Starbucks talking on life and complaining we don't like the new straws :)

Wednesday, April 1st. 60 days until the hurricane season and I will talk on that soon as I have much to say but I don't want to yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater which I do feel like talking on how bad the hurricane season could be. Hopefully, by then the curve will have flattened and medication will be found that is 100% effective and we can find a vaccine and we can all get back to hugging and going to parties and sitting at Starbucks taking pictures of our favorite new drink.

Sweet Tropical Dreams,

BobbiStorm 

@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram

Ps... Life does go on, it evolves... what's normal changes and then something else become normal. Having to talk holding a phone with a cord (even a 25 foot cord...) kind of tied you down. Then we were online on AOL and we never left the computer because you couldn't take the IM with you. Then we were able to talk on Text Messages so we were able to go to the store and have a more normal life and then.......our phones became our computers and then ...well you get the idea. What is normal changes often but still here typing, writing, thinking out loud and talking to my friends here, there and everywhere.

Good old movie... watched it on TV when I was little on one of those channels that showed old movies over and over and I bet it was great on Broadway. But we can stay home and watch old movies and songs and scenes and plays online while hiding from the world while staying home and staying safe. 

As we Sail Into April ... Inspiring Stories, Looking Back at How We Roared Back AFTER the Spanish Flu in the Roaring 20s.

As we all watch the hospital ship sail into NYC Harbor.

We are all in awe of this larger than life drama going on.

Both in our personal lives and collective lives.

The size and scope of this shows in this picture.

That's a huge ship... a huge hospital.

Trying to post every day as we get closer to the Hurricane Season and to be honest it kind of saves my sanity to write every day. My brother, the author, says I need to proofread more. I know, he's right, but this is my off season when few read the blog and I think of it more like an online diary. I'll try to be more on top of that proofreading and trying to be more uplifting rather than depressing as we work our way through this part of 2020 when quarantining is all the rage today. Rage really isn't a popular word anymore ...now that I think on that but it was all the rage in the 1920s that were much more fun if you were a flapper and danced til dawn.

For those of you not as much into the history of the Roaring 20s as I have always been and unaware of the social demographic issues that led up to this raucous period infamous for young kids climbing flagpoles, swallowing gold fish and girls raising their skirts and bobbing their hair up and so let me explain it to this way... they were exhaling, reacting, breathing and having fun after the hard times of World War 1 where sons, brothers and lovers marched off to war and then tragically on their way home many of those soldiers died on ships from the Spanish Flu. It wasn't the happiest of times and when the flu ebbed away and a short term 2 year mini depression from the after effects of WW1 and the Pandemic wore off people bounced back as they always do with a dizzying array of changes that impacted music, fashion and travel and the world was never the same. The Model T Ford led to people wanting to travel further from home and the hospitality business opened up road side "motels" and the US government began for the first time to really give people paid vacations and Americans hit the road looking for Tin Can Motels and a beach somewhere with pretty girls and handsome guys looking to have fun again.

Many students of history are wondering on the parallels and this graph is from the link below that discusses it in more detail than I am here today. Note even Wikipedia mentions the Spanish Flu as one hard time that people endured before the 1920s really began to roar with music, laughter and jazz.

I'm out of bananas and I don't see any in my future unless I break down and get some from the store so ... this song so resonated with me. I'm guessing it resonates with many here as well.

Nuff said on the Roaring 20s for now, but there are parallels, because people do tend to bounce back in the same way the England did after theaters were open again and life, literature and theater went on again. I read online that Shakespeare wrote the play King Lear during a plague. I'll have to run that past Snopes to see if it's true or very early urban legend!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_theatre_closure_1642

Next I wanted to show a video that is so inspiring and shows how even a tragic, deadly pandemic can bring the best out in people just trying to help make a difference for someone in need. I read about this last Saturday in the local paper that did a beautiful uplifting story and been meaning to mention it online. Seems the movement has gone viral (good use of that term) and spread to other cities so it shows you that good deeds can spread fast too!



That is so beautiful and I suggest you share that video with someone who feels down, depressed and hopeless and that pretty much describes most of us at some point of our day when reading about people in need of prayer or who have died. I'm really trying to balance my time between prayer and taking time to breathe, refresh my mind and soul and then I go back to praying with friends in Crown Heights and Florida who are in prayer groups for relatives. You gotta do what you gotta do and if my allergies weren't an issue I'd take a long walk along the golf course across the street and stare in wonder at the flowers in bloom ... but the pollen wouldn't be good for my system so I probably won't.  A friend and distant cousin posted this beautiful picture the other day in honor of the medical and public service people who are risking their lives to help us all.

That says it all for Raleigh, North Carolina.

Another uplifting story I read recently is below.

I also read it this past Saturday.

A pop up sort of place to help the homeless.

Let people take showers.. 

...cut their hair.

Uplift their spirit.

It uplifted mine.

People are trying to help...

... not easy.

I worked as a librarian.

Some of our nicest patrons were the homeless.

They hung out reading, going online.

Librarians get to know them well.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/24/libraries-

homelessness-deter-landscape-designs-san-francisco

Often patrons don't appreciate them as much...

...as the librarians do.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-23

/san-francisco-fights-coronavirus-by-finding-the-homeless-a-home

Lastly a few pictures of how we are all doing.

Doing as in surviving and thriving emotionally.

While staying home or isolating.

Key West NWS is awesome to follow.

As is another NWS on the opposite side of the USA

There's a close up of their forecast drawing.

Speaking of crayons I love color.

I love make up because I'm coloring.

That's what I told my friend Chana yesterday.

She lives in Israel.

She's a Make Up Artist... weddings, parties.

Not a lot of work these days ...

..so she tries to cheer us up online.

Playfully doing cute, fun things.

You can follow her on Instagram.

She's one of my daughter's best friends.

Kind of a child from another mother.

More from Instagram land.

My daughter-in-law shared it.

Sharing it here as well... 

My daughter in New York is an artist.

She lives in Airmont.

Luckily a big yard with some woods.

Watching, teaching her son and painting.

She pretty much paints everything she can .. 

That's my girl.

@dinadeedesign on Instagram.

So beautiful, she's an awesome artist.

Continuing the family artistic tradition...

...both her grandmothers were artists!

I prefer holding her and laughing with her.

But in isolation I'm enjoying her feed on Instagram.

My son graduated from FIU Architecture school.

He knows that lab well... 

Finally putting it to a great use.

They are making masks with the 3D printers.

Even the My Pillow Man is doing his part...

...they are making masks.

I complain about the constant commercials on TWC

And CNN and MSNBC and FOX.

But I applaud his part in helping.

So many are stepping up helping.

Focus on the good!

I'm not buying his pillow.

A friend I trust didn't like them.

But who needs new sheets these days?

The world could use masks.

I do believe masks are helpful.

Time will tell if the CDC gets around to it.

A lot of us are watching the Cuomo brothers.

Gov. Cuomo refered to him this morning as his ..

Best Friend.

Chris tested positive today...

My kids have been enjoying their online chats.

My kids have siblings...they can appreciate it!

I watched this episode with my best friend in real time.

Last week, we were chatting on the phone watching.

She's in North Miami Beach I'm in Raleigh.

We used to watch TWC this way ..really.

In real time she realized they were brothers.

Seriously. she didn't know.

She watches TWC more than the news.

It was funny, loved hearing her laugh.

And she laughed and she laughed.

Last night they argued over tomato sauce.

More cheerful than the daily press briefing.

Siblings gotta love them..

... even when we drive each other crazy.

Sadly at this morning's press conference going on now...

...Gov. Cuomo is speaking on his brother Chris.

Chris tested positive today for Covid-19....

Many people are and no he didn't look sick last night.

Prayers go out to him.

Social Distancing from the basement... 

And HUMOR is GOOD... 

This is going around.

Many of you have seen it I'm sure.

My granddaughter posted it on Instagram.

I'm blonde...took me a few minutes.

Good to have a sense of humor....

... a love of art, music and literature.

Stay well.

Wash your hands.

Stay inside.

Be a part of the solution not the problem.

That's my life for March 31st, 2019.

Oh and April is pretty much cancelled.

I'm guessing it's gonna be a crazy April Fool's Day.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram

Back from Miami... Watching Weather, Earthquakes, History and Touching Base with BobbiStorm - 1111 Lincoln Road, Florence 2006.. A Look Back and a Look Forward.

I've been following weather only here and there was time permits while on vacation in Miami. I refuse to obsess about the slight possibility of any sort of frozen preceipt in North Carolina until next winter; if we get snow it will surprise me and I'll be silly and over the top excited. Watching models this past winter, after the surprise snow in November, has been like watching Lucy promise not to pull the football away from Charlie Brown and then she does it over and over again.


I'm more than halfway to the Hurricane Season and thinking of posts to write that would offer some historic and educational value here as we march into March of 2019. You can see the signs online that we are more there in our minds than the pages of the calendar are that are stuck on February 2019.

Nothing makes my heart race faster than...

..purple satellite images of the tropics.

https://www.instagram.com/dabuhsurf/

Yes I was hiding from the world in Miami Beach.

Standing on rooftops staring out at the lights below.

Wearing long sleeves because it was cold that night.

High on life and too many Nespressos.

https://1111lincolnrd.com/

My son's best friend's father helped design it.

You've seen it on the credits of Burn Notice.

It's next store and upstairs from Nespresso :)

And yes someone lives on the top of it ...

...it's true. My son explained it to me.

I believed him but here's the link...

There's a tropical palace on top of an iconic parking lot.

They paved paradise and built another paradise.

But from the street level....

...who would know what's on the top of the parking lot?

Miami is like that, always evolving.

Always rediscovering itself.

Always redefining itself.

Magical city indeed.

How it looks from down below.

There are secrets everywhere there.

And in life as well.

They paved paradise indeed...

..and put up a parking lot with a hidden mansion on top!

I'm home, back from my Myami vacation (that's how natives like to say it...though my Grandma Mary used to call it "MY-AM-MAH" with a deep Southern drawl that she called a real "FLAHR-da accent" and yes there was something awesome about my Grandma Mary... no one like her really. I found out on Ancestry that she was actually six years older than she told everyone and I'm not even sure she knew that as there was a lot of fussing with birthdates in her family. Shows you what a cute, short, youthful looking woman can get away with over time.... six years... but it explains some discrepancies in her stories she told often that seemed not to make total sense. For instance she told me once she walked in a parade in "Tampeh" (that's how she called it) with her father when she was little and he held her hand so tightly so she didn't get lost as there were so many people there celebrating the end of the Spanish American War. I asked her if she was sure about that because she told me she was born in 1900 and that's really young for her to be walking in 1898! She thought on it and said maybe it was some other parade but I always wondered on that. There was a rumor going around once she was born in 1898 but even then you can't walk in a parade when you are five or six months old...  But at five or six you would go to a parade with your father. See my point? The devil IS in the details. She was born when her mother was going on 40, my mother was born when she was also older... I had my last child when I was going on 40. Patterns exist in families. I do not lie about my age but I could get away with it if I wanted to...

This is an off the topic post tonight and I'll resume posts regularly soon, but if you haven't noticed there isn't anything tropical going on right now. I was looking back at some old posts from years gone by when I used to sit up obviously at night refusing to go to sleep and apparently writing in my sleep the oddest posts and people read them it seems. Confessions of a storm tracker out of her mind a times. Looking longingly for some wave that would spin and catch the attention of the men at the NHC who might write a real discussion and that would come close enough to flirt with Miami but not do any real damage. That is the dream you know of all Miami kids.... the thills, the flirting and the excitement but no roof tiles should fly off anyone's roof and no papaya trees lost to the storm and only some minor palm trees swaying and work cancelled so you can go to the beach and watch the waves.

2006.... the year Ernesto came flirting (and sent kickass roses I may add to the library) and Florence confounding the NHC as to why it wasn't doing what they thought it should be doing. What is in a name afterall? That name is now retired, gone with the tropical wind and that ship won't be sailing again in the Atlantic Basin.

http://hurricaneharbor.blogspot.com/2006/09/?m=0

What amazes me is that I wrote like that and no I was not high on any substance other than a love of hurricanes and obviously some of my closest friends who also love weather. More diary than blog except for when something was really going on in the weather world. Lots of menus and music and musing on going to Key West which I did regularly back then when I needed a more tropical place than Miami.  Oh what a time it was...

Apparently there was an earthquake in September of 2006 in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Tampa (Tam-peh) and it's not that I didn't believe my blog but I Googled it just to be sure. How bout that, talk about a geological event disappearing in the tropical breeze.

Wonder what Dutchsinse would say on that one?

There was Florence in the Atlantic kind of...

...trying to find herself.

Confounding the forecasters.

Not much has changed huh?

Well the name has been retired.

Miami is a unique place.

Diverse and deceptive at times.

Raise the buildings.

Make a parking lot into public space.

And this weekend is the craziest weekend of the year.

The Boat Show meets the Coconut Grove Art Festival.

Miami in February is often an illusion.

And illusions sell.

So do the movies.

And if you are going to film in Miami...

...do it in February.

As for me I'm back in Carolina.

Debating what to do this week...

Wondering on the weekend.

It's the OSCARS in LA.

Far away but maybe I'll wear my Oscar necklace.

It's a real golden copy of an Oscar.

An Oscar charm!

My mother hated it.

She asked me if I had a St. Peter around my neck :(

I showed her it was a mini Oscar.

My ex husband got it for me in a jewelry store in Beverly Hills.

And then the next day they stopped selling them.

Apparently it's against the law to make a graven image of Oscar!

Even in 14K gold.

Beverly Hills was fun.

But it's not as beautiful as Miami Beach or Coral Gables.

Trees are budding in Carolina.

A few even have some flowers showing.

After this week of endless rain....

... maybe more will bud when the sun comes out.

It's quiet in February of 2019.

Looks like there's a party in Rio.

Sometimes I wish I could be as silly as I was in 2006.

I changed jobs that year.

I was probably out of my mind with fear.

I decided to take a job for Touro University.

On Miami Beach... paid to be on Miami Beach.

It changed my world in ways.

Change can be good.

It's good to stay fresh and be inspired.

So yes I went to my Tara.

I'll be back sooner rather than later.

Girls get married.

Babies are born.

Life goes on...

It's good to love where you live.

Nowhere is Key West.

Nowhere is Seattle.

There is a huge world in between.

I hope your world spins on the right axis.

And those you love make you smile and laugh.

And at the end of the day.

You say Amen and let's do it again!

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram

And everywhere else in between.

What's your dream?

What's your fantasy?

What would you like to create?

What a creation....

...