A Year Ago Today...........August 10, 2016

It was a Friday.

We had just driven over to Orange Beach AL to celebrate our anniversary.  Frank had always wanted ride those jet skis things, oh, wave runners!  That's it.  So I brightly said, let's do it....








And we headed east to Orange Beach.  In the rain.







But we figured the rain would stop.  Eventually.








And eventually.....it did.





Orange Beach is nice.   I guess.  We really didn't see it.  I paid extra dollars for the room that had a balcony looking our over the Gulf.


We couldn't sit on it because of the rain.

There was a lull in the rain and we decided to check out the other end of the island.














There was a park you could walk out and sit on the rock jetty.








We kept saying to each other,  I imagine it would be a beautiful sight if the sun were ever to shine.







 


That night we had dinner at a BBQ joint I can't remember the name of.   I wanted to eat seafood, but he won.

Maybe if we had eaten seafood............

No, we never got to ride the wave runners.

The Day After.......

It was a long night without TV.  O - M - G!  We had power so that was not a problem, but somehow the cable was down.  That means my TVs don't work and my computer can only access itself, which is not as much fun  as accessing the internet!  Finally it all came up this morning!  Yay! I can watch the Baltimore Riots now!  Geez!

The headlines say the recorded winds were 62mph and there are currently 80,000 customers without power.  Did you see the train fall off the Huey P long bridge in New Oleans yesterday when this same storm hit there?  I will have to find it for you.

TRAIN VIDEO

I drove around yesterday doing errands and getting the Salted Caramel Blizard at DQ.  Priorities, you know.  There were so many trees either split in half or that had major branches broken.   I picked up some boiled crawfish for dinner last night.  Between us we ate 7 lbs of the mudbugs.  Can't get better than that!

My Borzoi friends live across town and had a telephone pole snap.  Their entire area is out of power.  They have 13 of the big dogs, so it is hard to relocate!

At least had power, so I have to be grateful for that.  And having electric meant I could SEW!

I got the center done on the CAAWS T-Shirt quilt.  I have a space on both sides of the center to fill.  I pulled some orphan blocks and tested a few of them.  None will work so I guess I  need a dog block or a bone block maybe.  I have some ideas, or if you have a dog or bone block, send it my way.

Check out my WOOF!

Today, I have a meeting to bring Hopsice in for my mother again.  She is losing so much weight so quickly.  And once again, the  nursing him feels this is the decline.  We have gone through this three times now.  Of course, Frank is not in the city today, so I go it alone once again.

I am sure she wants it to be over as much as I do.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night.......

My deck!  Branches down every

 Only it wasn't night.

Mid morning the storm hit.  It was so so dark, like midnight, as they say.  The street lights were on.  As I walked through the house, you could feel the low pressure of the storm system.  It is always eery during these storms.  We didn't lose electricity but it did flicker like we would.  We are so used to conditions during a hurricane. This looked and felt just like a hurricane!  My guess is that we had at least 70 mph straight line winds in this system.

The trees where whipping wildly.  The robocall from the city came, I think I have only gotten two others in the last 5 years.

Before it hit, I called Carrie.  We usually have to deal with poor Hugeaux, he is terrified during storms.  I did not have enough time to get to him safely.  He was on his own.

This branch is from another tree!

The storm was just beginning in Port Allen, just across the river from downtown Baton Rouge, and Carrie said they were at a customer's in Port Allen and had just lost power.  Frank waited for the rain do die down, he had to be in Port Allen at one of the plants for an 11 AM meeting.  He just said the Mississippi River B ridge appeared to be closed.  I show you that bridge from time to time when we talk about the Old Man River.

Branches in the yard

The nursing home my mom is in just called and said they are fine, no power loss and no damage. 

My patio debris

Luckily this storm was moving at 65 mpg and would get through the area quickly.  The news just announced that tornadoes were seen in Covington and Belle Chasse, south of New Orleans.  I have friends and family in Covington and one of Frank's offices is in Belle Chasse.  He is often there.  thank goodness he was heading to Port Allen today!

branches on my deck

It is currently hitting New Orleans.  The newscasters are funny as they try to pronounce the names of the cities.  the most common mistake is the Parish of Plaquemines is not pronounced with the S.  It drives us crazy when they use the S on that parish!

I just began to hear the birds again.  There is a squirrel nest down that makes DiNozzo ecstatic! I can't even lure him in with the promise of treats!

Let me start getting some of the branches up and check the fenceline for escape routes.

Glad there was not a lot of building damage.  It is so calm now.  Odd, this calmness after the energy of the storm.   But I'll take it!