rebecca_in_blue | Entries tagged with hurricanes

Everyone in my neck of the woods has been talking about Hurricane Isaac all week. It got a little ridiculous. Isaac was a Category 1 hurricane that made landfall on the other side of the state, and yet schools and businesses across the parish were closed for two days, and I even saw a few places with boarded-up windows, which made me roll my eyes so hard. For all that worrying, we had two days of 20-30-mile wind gusts, one day of rain, and our electricity flickered a bit -- a whole lotta nothin'. But I know I'm lucky to be able to say that. Other parts of the Gulf Coast got slammed hard.

Business has been slow because of the weather, and I've worked long, slooow days all this week. Ugh! This getting up early is really starting to wear on me. But Athena will be in town this weekend for Labor Day, and I'm hoping we can together and do something fun.

25 DAYS LEFT UNTIL SEASON 10 OF NCIS! And CBS just released a teaser promo, which you can see here. Have I mentioned that the premiere date, September 25, also happens to be Yom Kippur?! Why, oh why, couldn't they have chosen September 18? Why did they have to choose the highest High Holy Day in Judaism? Ugh! I had been looking forward to watching the premiere when it aired, but I'll just have to catch it online later because I really can't miss the Kol Nidre service. I recently had this conversation with Sassy Jewish Grandfather #1...

Me: Did you know the season premiere of NCIS is airing on Yom Kippur?
Michael: [nonchalantly] Well, you won't be able to watch it.
Me: [embarrassed] Actually, I've been thinking about skipping the service.
Michael: [horrified] Rebecca! It's Yom Kippur!
Me: But... it's Season 10 of NCIS!

(Don't worry, I'm not really going to skip services. I'm not that bad of a Jew. As much as I love NCIS, I know the Kol Nidre service is more important. I'm going to keep this countdown going, anyway.)

In other Jew news, they finally finished construction on R-street downtown, so biking to services tonight, I was able to take a new route that felt infinitely easier and shorter. Shehekianu! Shortly before I left, my sunglasses broke and while trying to glue them back together, I got glue all over my hands. So I spent most of my time picking glue off my fingers rather than looking at the siddur, but I still said all the responses. Finally Paul (Sassy Jewish Grandfather #2) turned to me and said, "Rebecca, how are you doing that? Do you have the whole book memorized or something?" Haha, hardly, but I've always had a good memory for text, and I've been saying the responses for +2 years now! Shabbat Shalom, y'all!

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: Louisiana 1927, Randy Newman

Yesterday morning, my fast-food run ended with me driving Muse Watson to the auto-repair shop. No, I wasn't in another accident, but Muse had been having some problems that were getting worse. I'm beginning to suspect that car is as cantankerous as the person he's named after! Fortunately, he was fixed and ready to go this afternoon. I was able pay for his repairs, but I sure as heck didn't want to. Ugh. But there are things to be thankful for.

The latest hurricane/tropical storm/depression in the Gulf is sending a little rain and lots of wind our way. I love it! All day today it's been so fresh and cool and breezy outside. Perfect bike-riding weather, and it's neat seeing tree branches, stoplights, people's hair, and just about everything else blowing in the wind.

After shabbat services this evening, I took Eva out for pizza as a belated birthday gift. She turned 14 this week. She's an infinitely friendlier, happier, better-rounded young person than I was at that age. Of course, I was a moody, pissy little bitch at 14, and for many years after, so that's not the most ringing endorsement. But Eva can play beautiful pieces on the piano and has never had a lesson (the title to this entry is from one of the songs she loves to play; she has a thing for '80s power ballads), she studies tae-kwon-do and could probably take down most adults, and she's very active in her church.

When did this little chick - making faces with me, in Grandma's rightful house, on a Christmas Eve of long ago, photographed by Aunt Carolyn - get big enough and strong enough to give me a piggyback ride? (This is a really unflattering photo of me, by the way; thank goodness it isn't bigger.) I still can't believe she's 14 now! And I really can't believe that in just a few days, we'll have the 10-year anniversary of 9/11. It doesn't seem possible that it's been ten years already.

More good news: Athena will be in town this weekend for Labor Day! I have to work, but I'm going to find some time to see her, even if it means I won't get to sleep at all.

And... ONLY 18 DAYS LEFT until Season 9 of NCIS!

Good Shabbos!

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Heaven, Bryan Adams

The first hurricane of the 2010 season, Alex, has appeared in the Gulf. Bad news for the people of Mexico (where it's currently expected to make landfall) and even worse news for us if it makes the oil spill spread further and faster. Which it probably will. So in the meantime, I'm enjoying all the fresh, cool wind and rain that it's sending our way. It rained for most of today and yesterday, but not so hard that I couldn't go bike riding in it. It felt so nice. I like to think that somewhere in Jamaica and Mexico, Nakesha and Mariana are enjoying some cooler weather, too.

Re: the oil spill, by the way, our street has been flooded by storm surges before, because it's a former drainage canal that connects to a lake that's part of a river that flows into the Gulf. So my worst-case scenario is a river of oil rising right outside my bedroom window!

Sable's skin is bad enough as is, but it always gets worse during the summer, so yesterday I finally gave him an overdue, much-needed bath. He was awful. He's never liked baths, but usually he just suffers through them silently, with Gibbs-like stoicism. ("Stoic? You think my house is stoic?" Oh dear, how does everything I talk about end up back at NCIS?) This time he whined like I was killing him! I've never bathed a squirming baby, but now I think I have some idea what it's like.

In other, geekier news, I've begun writing fanfiction (to quote Craig Ferguson again, "Don't dare laugh at that! How dare you laugh at that!"), which is very strange and not something I've ever really done before. While I am glad to finally have those creative juices flowing again in some way, the bad news is that inspiration only comes late at night when I should be in bed. The past two nights, I stayed up until about two in the morning, and both times I had to be up at eight. Although the second time was more Sable's fault for wrestling with the comforter.

I'm off for the 4th of July this weekend! I'm still debating how I should spend the day, and whether I should make some dessert for the occassion.

Current Mood: tomorrow's Friday!
Current Music: Cry, Faith Hill

Well, we survived Hurricane Ike all right, too. Our power didn't go out at all this time, even though there was a lot more wind and rain than there was for Gustav. The street off the corner of Grandma's house was a veritable river, more flooded than I'd ever seen it before. I went over there yesterday and splashed around with Eva. Power went out on their side of town, so her family stayed at Grandma's until it came back on.

I got another truckload of boxes moved into our new apartment today. I'm planning to move more stuff in and call the electric company tomorrow. Our power was supposed to be turned on last Friday, but obviously that didn't happen because of the hurricane. I just hope we'll be able to start living there by the end of this week. I also need to apply for more jobs tomorrow. Productive day, hopefully.

Today I discovered that I like onion rings. Adam wanted to try some and bought a bag at Sonic's, but he ended up not liking them (big surprise) and gave them to me. It actually is weird when you think about it, considering how much Adam likes raw onions.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Together We'll Be, Oliver & Company

Part One:
This excerpt from Julie Andrews's autobiography, Home, which I'm currently reading: "I was offered the title role in Cinderella at the London Palladium. The theater has tremendous prestige and a great history. Almost every American headliner has performed at the Palladium. It holds more than two thousand people, yet standing on the stage, one feels one can touch the entire audience. It is immaculate -- nothing like the tacky vaudeville theaters I'd been playing in." (She was seventeen at this time.)

Part Two:
My ticket stub to the performance of The Sound of Music that Sara and I saw in London.

We saw The Sound of Music in the same theater where Julie Andrews got one of her first big breaks! That is one of the fucking coolest things ever.

We survived Hurricane Gustav with ease. Our electricity went out for a little while (on Tuesday, after the hurricane was over, for some odd reason), but I was out bike riding when that happened. This morning Sara and I heard an ad on the radio that said something about "the wake of such a powerful storm," and Sara burst out laughing.

I sold my cans today and got twenty dollars for them. I used that to treat myself to some goat cheese (of course).

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Adam watching CNN

Grandma's house was packed (and I mean packed) yesterday with relatives, friends, and people I'd never met. We were having a several-weeks-late wedding reception for my cousin and his new wife. There was chicken in gravy, rice dressing, shrimp fetucinni, crawfish pie, wedding cake, German chocolate cake, and a big bowl of ginger ale and lime sherbert, which is my favorite punch in the world. I was tempted to pick up the punch bowl and drink straight from that, but somehow I restrained myself. Anyway, Grandma's house was very hectic and noisy, and we called it "Hurricane Comeaux."

Today is Eva's birthday (she's 11!), and Adam and I went over to visit her. I had made her another YouTube video like I had for last year, but there was something wrong with the JavaScript on her computer, so she couldn't watch it. While we were there, Adam got a nosebleed for no apparent reason, and on the way back he got blood all over my truck. Driving there and back was like going through a ghost town. One of the busiest streets was completely empty, all five lanes of it, for as far as I could see, and nearly all the businesses were closed and boarded up.

We're doing what we usually do in the face of hurricanes: nothing. I brought in most of our outside things that could've been blown around (my hibiscus plants, etc.) but we haven't boarded up the windows or sand-bagged the house like most of our neighbors have. I'm really only worried about our feral kittens and semi-feral cat. I would bring them inside if I could, but I doubt they would let me.

Meanwhile our computer, which has always worked fine, suddenly started acting like a piece of crap a few days ago. My sibs and I have been trying to figure out what the fuck went wrong, but we haven't had any luck yet. Very frustrating.

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: none, due to computer problems

Sara and I went shopping last night and I decided to treat myself to Kroger-brand pickles and Lay's potato chips. And predictably, when I came out of the bathroom later, I said to her, "I just don't know what I was thinking, buying pickles and potato chips at the same time. Why didn't you stop me?" But she was too happy that I had set up my own file on Adam's Nintendo DS to care.

Some relatives from Alabama arrived in town today. I spent the afternoon at Grandma's house helping her get ready for them. She has been cooking up a storm for them: gumbo, egg salad, crawfish pie, and shrimp lasagna (which I'd never even heard of before today). My cousin, his wife, and their daughter will be visiting at her house until Sunday or Monday, depending on where Hurricane Gustav goes. My cousin said that at least this hurricane has a bad-ass name. My aunt said, as a joke, that they're holding Masses in Cameron Parish and praying for it to hit New Orleans. Of course Grandma thought she was being serious and was horrified.

Our streetlights are working again! The streetlights for our entire block went out for about a week, but they finally came back on yesterday. For a while there street looked extremely gloomy and God-forsaken whenever you drove past it at night.

I can smell fall coming when I ride my bike now. I love it, fall has always been my favorite season.

Current Mood: need to use the bathroom
Current Music: You Are Loved, Josh Groban

Tropical Storm Edouard made landfall today in the early AM. I sat on the back porch and watched the wind and rain with Eleanor. She is a very sweet little dog, but they keep her outside and she is so companionable that she wants someone to be out there with her almost all the time. She has learned to climb up to the dining room window and knock on it when she wants company.

Right now it is very hard not to be frustrated with myself for majoring in English and French, instead of a subject that could actually be useful in finding a job. But at the same time, I know it was the right choice, because the thought of majoring in a subject I hated for four years just so I could find a job later makes me want to vomit. And nobody finds their dream job right out of college, so I suppose I should cut myself some slack. It would just be nice to have a job, whether it was my dream job or not.

I think when Sara gets home, I will go out and buy myself some goat cheese.

Current Mood: guilty
Current Music: Stolen Child, The Waterboys

Well, I've been absent for, ah, a long time, yes, but I do have a good excuse. I was, uh, I was kidnapped by international terrorists. Yeah, that's it! And I spent the last two months held hostage in an obsucre cave in Iraq with no plumbing or electricity. I barely managed to escape with my life, and every day I prayed that I would someday be able to view this journal again, and... uh... well... okay, not really.

I obviously wasn't kidnapped by terrorists, and I don't have a good excuse. I've been busy since school started (and I think JXB's French classes are about to kill me!) but for the last month or so of summer, I was just really lazy. Not to mention depressed by the end of Half-Blood Prince. Deaths of cool, courageous, quirky, funny, well-loved father figures will do that to you, I guess.

Oh, and I do have one good excuse for the past week or so! I've been dodging hurricanes! First Katrina, then Rita. Cripes, why does God hate Louisiana?

Current Mood: sigh...
Current Music: Name, The Goo Goo Dolls

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rebecca_in_blue

March 2013

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Page Summary

Louisiana, they're trying to wash us away...
Thinking about our younger years / We were young and wild and free...
And though Rebecca has wept and fasted, wept and prayed...
Business tomorrow, and Star Trek, too.
Here's what made my day...
It's the calm before the storm...
Something in the autumn that is native to my blood...
Oh my gosh, I'm totally buggin'. I feel like such a bonehead.
Even though the moment passed Rebecca by, she still can't turn away.

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Page generated Aug. 1st, 2025 11:50 pm

on your journey, i will bless you...

...and you will be a blessing

Entries tagged with hurricanes

Louisiana, they're trying to wash us away...

Thinking about our younger years / We were young and wild and free...

And though Rebecca has wept and fasted, wept and prayed...

Business tomorrow, and Star Trek, too.

Here's what made my day...

It's the calm before the storm...

Something in the autumn that is native to my blood...

Oh my gosh, I'm totally buggin'. I feel like such a bonehead.

Even though the moment passed Rebecca by, she still can't turn away.