Weather geeks unite

Not that it'll do anything.  Most of you who read my vamp tales have realized by now I don't have much use for the weather 'forecasters'.  Bob Dale, since passed, used to get up in front of the weather map in his bow ties and tell what could happen.  What he also used to say was don't take his word for it but stick your head out the window and look before you left for work.  He didn't take himself too seriously.  Yet, he was informative.  Unlike the weather bimbos and himbos currently littering the airwaves (cable waves?). 

First off it seems necessary to be newly engaged and sporting a hunk of 'ice' at least 3 karats (who doesn't right?), second the gals have wardrobes straight off South Beach evening attire, third a lovely tan and finally the ability to giggle or cry on demand.  As for the ability to comprehend anything other than cue cards I am not so sure that's a job requirement.  In fact, I think they lose 'Barbie Doll Points' if they are able to do much more than that.  I've surfed the local channels and end up going to the weather channel on the eights or running amok on the Internet looking for satellite images and current charts. 

And no I'll admit that most of the Californian weather folks weren't any better on predicting patterns other than telling surfers to stay out of the ocean after rain fall - something they NEVER do here.  I guess Floridians don't get sick from toxic sludge run off and contamination.  Or it's their way of thinning the herd so they can pretend like those two foot waves are 'huge'.  I still snicker when I watch my neighbors run for the beach with their boards. 

Tomorrow is the official start of the 'hurricane season' and three weeks ago was the official start of the 'raining season'.  The news folks can't make up their minds if we are going to have a hurricane hit or we just are going to have a miserably hot summer.  Given it was 90 degrees yesterday I would think a bit of both probably up for grabs.  The local radio DJs make snide comments about how hurricanes are just marketing ploys for Home Depot and Lowes to sell out plywood and Publix and Winn-Dixie to empty the shelves of canned goods and water.  I'm not naive enough to think that hurricanes don't happen but I can't worry about it.  There is so much more to life than living in fear.  Things we can't change - we can't.  I do have some of the basics but I refuse to get hysterical about the possibilities.  And yes you all can remind me if one hits and I get upset.  But having grown up in the land of shake and bake (earthquakes and fires SoCal style) and living in Nevada and going through a blizzard white-out a time or two then add in the tornadoes I watched in Michigan maybe I am a tad jaded?

But at least the storms bring killer skies. 

May nearly faded

So this morning I am listening to 'easy listening music' so as to not offend the locals and not go mad having nothing to hear - and the gal says, "It's 8:31 and 81 degrees".  It struck me as odd.  It's only fricken half past eight am and it's already over 80 degrees.  AND it's only May.

Thunderstorms lining the horizon today as they did last night.  Don't know if I'll be able to log in with the storms coming but I will try to make the writer meeting.  Those slices of 'non normalacy' can keep me sane during the busy week.  And they have been busy. 

I did get to write this weekend.  I also got outside a bit between storms and was relatively unbothered by anyone.  A delightful weekend.  Made the walnut chicken recipe last night with some steamed sticky rice.  All in all the way I like my holidays to go.  Now back to the grind. 

I can see clearly now....

Yes, the rain is gone.  At least for now.  After ten or more days in a row of rain I was starting to wonder if I was supposed to be building a boat in my basement.  And yes, I do have a basement so it's not me being 'literary' or 'silly'.  Okay, I'll give you that I am silly.

Work has been madly chaotic.  Transitions all over with new folks coming into the company and old ones leaving.  My past supervisor when I first started here tendered her resignation Tuesday and is gone as of two or so hours ago.  The department director picked up a couple dozen bagels and a card was passed around.  That was it.  She'd been with the company over five years.  Completely odd to me.  The past few jobs I'd been in when I gave notice it was a big deal.  I had folks give me gifts and parties. 

Writing again.  I never really stop, my brain is constantly doing storylines and zigzag connections for what I want to get into my tale.  Oddly my current work up on Piker Press is about to catch up with actual hurricane season.  Who knows I may be getting some up close and personal experiences to clutter into the tale.  At some point I need to wrap up Jerry's little war and get back to the West Coast vampires.  Heaven only knows what troubles they've gotten into while I have kept my vamps on the East Coast.  Then there's that odd little tale I have a bucket of words in about "Good Morning" picture. 

Neighborhood has been slightly odd lately.  The party crowd that had been ruining my back commons area have kept it down to a reasonable sort but the other neighbor in the other half of that duplex has had the cops at her door at least three times I know about since Sunday.  Sunday when I was out watching a bad Johnny Depp movie (yes, Sand, I saw it but still liked it in that dark guilty pleasure sort of way) and having a late lunch with my gal pals there was an incident.  The neighbor has had homeless folks and a younger guy living with her.  Well the younger guy had a girlfriend when my neighbor decided he was perfect for her.  A month or two later the ex-girlfriend finally stalked them down.  Rocks through windows and mad screaming matches.  Slice of heaven huh?  Middle of Monday/Tuesday (around 1:30 am Tuesday morning) I saw more cops cars and she was yelling at cop who suggested she should kick the new boyfriend to the curb if she wanted to stop the drama.  Naturally she didn't.  So who knows what this long weekend will bring.  Hopefully writing time and some more rain!

Something is off about me *grin*

Just got the tornado warning over the radio for the next half hour and immediately I had to log into the weather site and see where.  About two miles to four miles from where I live heading this direction.  I naturally checked my battery in my camera.  Seriously. 

But it's all grist for the mill of my brain.  I've seen a few tornadoes and didn't have a camera available to my regret.  I have images in my mind from horrid disasters I've witnessed and it would be nice to have picture proof.  Two of my coworkers pondered if they should hide under their desks. 

Yeah, I know.  I'm not normal.

Moon Madness

I liked the Super Moon the next morning more than the night of the moon.  It's been crazy lately.  Folks in traffic aiming for me and my car.  The drama and traumas with work and around the compound.  I wasn't there but I guess my one neighbor went a bit crazy on Saturday.  She has had a number of folks 'living' with her.  One is a guy who told a good friend of mine that she was his 'meal ticket'.  Yeah, lovely no?  Then another acquaintance who is mooching off her and sleeping outside on the couch in the small patio area that I have to walk by to get to the laundry room.  That wasn't a lovely slice of scenery Saturday morning.  A homeless lady going through withdrawals and her lizard like 'friend' sleeping on the air mattress in her living room.  So I guess it hit some sort of crisis over weekend and I haven't seen any of them. 

I was actually able to get outside and enjoy the backyard this weekend.  The landlord must have heard that I've been looking to move.  They didn't have a huge party on Sunday with a dozen people and half dozen kids so I was able to enjoy the yard and pool with my friends.  It was wonderful!  I'd picked up the ingredients to make Chinese food Sunday but we all ended up nibbling on veggies and fruit instead so last night I cooked.  I had forgot how tasty the dishes are.  I'll get the recipes up on Piker Press sooner or later.  But here's a snap.  Chicken with Walnuts and Chili Shrimp.  White rice and it was a meal. 

Welcome to the neighborhood now get a clue!

I was home Friday to catch up on my chaotic existence and not be a work.  The added benefit is the new neighbors work Monday through Fridays and thus it was quiet!  I did laundry, cleaned the house, cleaned out the fridge, sent off a box of books to mom, frosted the leftover layer of Red Velvet cake as a surprise for my friend - her birthday was earlier in year and I'd frozen a layer so she could enjoy and not have to share, picked up Chinese food and discovered the owner was from San Fransisco and was roughly my age and had grown up skiing same places I did up in Tahoe.  All of this naturally before noon.  Wrote a bit (yeah actually fed the nightmare machine), read a bit and then sauntered down to see my friend with the cake.  She was shocked and delighted.

I'd heard it was going to be a rainy weekend possible (40% possibility which usually means I get a light sunburn).  Oh boy did they underestimate that storm.  Two to three inches of rain during the weekend at first report this morning with the weather casters admitting it was probably more.  The thunder and lightning started at 11:15 pm on Friday night and rumbled on and off all weekend.  Lightning chased the thunder and windy rain.  So perfect weather for me.  It also meant there wouldn't be any kids drowning in the pool this weekend.  Naturally they still had parties both Saturday and Sunday.  They seem to treat the entire common area in the back as exclusively theirs.  I went over to my friend Michele's work on Saturday and had a great time.  She works at this really old bar that has entertainment in the evenings.  Old folks dancing to live music.  They call all day asking who's playing and when the music starts.  We swap news and mock folks who are regulars.  This past Saturday the band was setting up and tuning their instruments for a good hour.  They didn't seem to have it together and from what Michele said they play their weekly.  Couldn't tell by what I heard!

I came home and headed out to dinner in the rain.  It was a good breezy wet day.  Naturally the neighbors had the back area full of people.  Sunday there was even more rain.  But between showers I snapped a picture to show the 'normal' number of cars they have show up weekends.  This is not the 'huge' parties where there are another half dozen cars crammed into 3 places.  Technically they only have 'one' place but they leak over constantly.  Grrrr.  Yes there are five cars squeezed into two places.  Lovely.  NOT.

Dream hangover

The moon has been low in the sky shadowed by the earth and a slip of the sun illuminates her backside.  I walk in between the palm trees full and lush.  Coconuts litter the sandy grass underfoot having given into the pull of gravity.  A touch of winter lingers in the air but not enough for me to wear much more than Capri pants and a ribbed tank top.  Well worn flip flops keep me from touching the earth. 

Were that a dream I would have woken smiling this morning.  No, that was the walk I took after dark before turning into bed.  Stressful times for me lately and I haven't had much time to write other than in my thoughts and between the sheets.  I don't always have nightmares that I completely remember once dawn breaks and I begin the day.  I know when they are bad because there is a lingering ache that runs around my nerve endings as the synapses misfire the fight or flee impulses from the tormented slumber.

The outright absurd dreams or when I have powers beyond the average human are easy to send away in the morning - no matter how horrific nor tense.  It's the ones that are slices of life that are achingly realistic that tend to keep flowing in and out of the day.  Last night I had some intense dreams that fell into the first category - now little more than foggy wisps of nonsense.  The one that fell into the second class is what is pushing at my mind.

Just for the record at no time in my life have I thought, "Gee, I want to head up to Alaska and see what all the talk is about." Yet, I enjoyed living in Nevada and Michigan.  The winters could be miserable but there was plenty to keep me busy and I liked the people I met and knew.  While Alaska with the long, long dark nights and the other season of long, oddly lit nights haven't ever held much appeal.  Places where below zero temperatures are the norm don't do it for me.  I often thought Hell isn't filled with fire and flames for the damned but ice cold and bone chilling with every breath stabbing at your lungs and making your heart race. 

My 'twilight zone' nightly offering from my subconscious last night was set in Alaska.  The analytical side of my mind knew it was due to the dropped temperature outside with the taste of cold lingering on the edges of my world.  But my nasty imagination gave me a new sort of hell.  I was in a indoor mall that was in a small town terrified by the bears that had gone rogue and were killing anyone they caught.  I was trying to help find a child who was missing and instead was smacked to the ground by a large caramel colored bear who had my head pined to the concrete with a large paw and was holding me face down.  I wasn't injured severely yet but painfully aware of the claws that had me.  The men of the town screamed as they tore at the beast and yanked the creature off me and I slithered out from beneath the mad animal relatively unscathed. 

To my stunned horror one of the men was flung off and smacked against the nearest wall breaking the wood and another black bear was on the other side of the partition clawing at the man's arms and legs.  Women were screaming and I was upset that rescuing me was costing that man his very life.  Another man lost his throat to the bear as it stood up roaring and biting.  I scampered into a small store where everyone from the town seemed to be clustered and shouting.  My hands were gripping the sides of my face and covering my ears.  A woman spitting mad launched at me blaming me for the bears.  Another bear I recognized as a Grizzly snatched her from my face and broke her spine with an audible wet sound.  My heart raced as I further back pedaled into the room with no visible exit.  My sight grew foggy and I woke. 

That is a taste of the nightmare haunting me this morning.