Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Now that I've pulled myself together for the day...

Hey, I forgot to mention that it was my parents 20th wedding annivesary yesterday. How fantastic is that?! Their wedding was SO rockin you can't even imagine!


I'm the one on the lower right with the PERMAGRIN. The other little cuties are some of my girl cousins on my mum's side. Those were the exciting days of becoming a 'real' family, getting my ears pierced, being tall (I was always the "tall" girl until I was 12!), having adorable french braided hair, and wearing a cute puffy-sleeved peach dress with a bow on my ass. Also, when I was that age I wanted to be "prom queen or a nurse" when I grew up and constantly wished I was 14. I thought 14 was a magical age or something. Ok, so I was a little naieve and weird.

It is about to rain again. Basically, the rain gods only liked my young-maiden-sacrifice thing for a couple of days here. They're back to being vengeful and mighty. Ugh, the rain means AGAIN there is no sun out today. The thing I'm most worried about on this trip overseas is the sun burning my delicate skin. While we here in WI have enjoyed a nice winter since last September (ok, fine, we're about a week into spring), Lebanon is about 4 months into summer already. I spent the 1/2 day of sunshine we've had outside and already burned my shoulders. The one spot I didn't put sunscreen on and left unprotected for 15 minutes. I am soooooo going to stick out like a pale thumb over there.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Really? I haven't mentioned this in the last 20 seconds?

In one week I will be in London-town napping off a long flight and preparing for boardage of a plane to Lebanon. This creates a massive to-do list for this week which includes fun things like "get reading material" and not fun things like "tell apt. office we have a wasps nest on our balcony." The list is long. I generally like to-do lists though. Keeps my brain focused. Otherwise I'm all "OOH SHINY."

Hi, in one week I will be in London-town. Did I mention that yet? Oh. Ok. Well, you can perceive my excitement. Excitement over travelling. In one week. To exciting places. Not that there hasn't been excitement around here. How many ways can it rain? I'm reminded of Forrest Gump quote, "One day it started raining, and it didn't quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath."

Friday's rain:
- Downpour in the early afternoon
- No interruption of my plans
- Tornado sirens going off in late afternoon, but no weather here at the apt. to warrant concern. I don't even think we had a drop when there were actual sirens going off.
- I still put laundry in in the basement in case I would have been cooped up down there. Might as well be productively safe?

Saturday's rain:
- sunburned by the pool in the morning
- in the immense humidity discover our central air is broken
- crazy fast moving storm.
- sirens go on, then off. then on. of- no, on. off? WHAT?
- listening to news on TV "at 124th report of funnel." Am reminded HELLO, I LIVE ON 124TH. have N tell me he thinks this is all "cool." I am decidedly anti-scary weather.
- Rains on and off the rest of the night.

Sunday's rain:
- Go out in the morning to a park. The park that is now a lake. Pretty darn freaky to see submerged playground equipment.
- Make eye appt. for N.
- 10 mins before appt skies break open and shower FURY upon the lands. The N still convincing me to head out with him. Um. No. Cancel appt.
- Storms on and off. Scary lightning. I hide out at computer to subside fears.
- Go to open window at night when rain stopped and have window completely break out of its sill. Add "fix window" on to-do list.

The greatest part of all of this were the TV weather reports. I'm not going to turn the seriousness of a tornado into a laughing matter, but c'mon, they were simply fantasticly crazy. ALL WEATHER ALL THE TIME. WE GOT EVERYONE IN THE STATION RIGHT NOW FOR YOU FOLKS. WE'RE GOING TO BE ON THIS FOR THE REST OF YOUR DAY. Lots of that. This was putting all their degrees to use(but things I could find out for myself on this thing called "the internet").

Other amusing highlights:
- They let people call in with what they are experiencing. "UHH Richard we have a car in the median and the people, the people look OK, but we have EMT on the scene. Wait, no one is moving really quickly. I think the people just have a broken-down car. We're not seeing any rain here at this point."
- The weather people kept being handed pieces of paper on-air with updates. It was all about how fast the weather person could read the paper, process it, and get the information out with out fumbling all over the words. It was like seeing a brain melt.
- I should have turned the live weather reports into a drinking game.
* phrase "super cell" = sip of beer
* phrase "take cover" = yell out "TO THE BATCAVE"
* funnel cloud spotted = take a shot & head to basement
* >50 mph wind = shake up a good martini
...etc


So besides weather antics, and a to-do list, I've only really had to keep my brain calm from the excitement of travelling. Because I'll be on a plane in a week... have I mentioned that?