Tornado Awareness

Part of me wants to start a tornado awareness campaign of sorts for my fellow Alabamians.  It begins with "Any time it's warmer than 65 degrees on an overcast day in  January, you should check the weather" and ends with a link to the weather blog.  Also, information about polygons and the 'tornado alley' we have running from west central Alabama up through northeast Alabama.  And I'm not victim blaming here; these storms are strong and will do what they will.  That's not where I'm going with this at all.  But saying there is no warning is generally just saying you didn't receive the vast amounts of information that was floating around.  It's unfounded.  If someone wasn't warned, it's from a lack of education about weather and warning systems.  So many people don't even realize that those warnings aren't county wide; they're for a relatively specific polygon.  Our siren system just hasn't caught up to that yet, and people place far too much reliance on it.  My friend Elizabeth over at Adventures in Life, Love & Librarianship speaks her bit about preparedness in much more eloquent, informational fashion than I could muster today.  Go check it out!



*I will add that many, MANY people in our area do take these storms seriously.  We've been through enough as it is.  And I will give a shout out to every person who closed on a loan or house at our office today...they've all mentioned the storms and told each other (and their trusty closing attorneys) to be careful.  When the going gets rough in the South, we generally just get better.

Dang, girl

I was never a huge Sex and the City fan or detractor.  I've seen some episodes, kind of know the storyline, and enjoy the occasion when I watch it.  But this New York Times profile on Cynthia Nixon, who played Miranda on the show, was kind of awesome.  She's been in acting since she was a child and has had quite the career and education.  She had this to say about detractors who feel that her change in sexuality was somehow disingenuous:

"“I totally reject that,” she said heatedly. “I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn’t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not.” Her face was red and her arms were waving. “As you can tell,” she said, “I am very annoyed about this issue. Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate? It seems we’re just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don’t think that they should define the terms of the debate. I also feel like people think I was walking around in a cloud and didn’t realize I was gay, which I find really offensive. I find it offensive to me, but I also find it offensive to all the men I’ve been out with.”"

And then she had this to say about her kids: "“I know everybody says their kids are their greatest achievement,” she said, “and I think my kids are wildly impressive and great, but I don’t feel like they’re my achievement, really. They’re their own people.""  I love this.  I don't have kids, but this is the kind of mindset I want to have going into it one day.

Mornings

The following is a true account of how my morning went.

Jay wakes me up screaming; he's having a nightmare that a snake is crawling up his leg.  I reach over to grab his hand to give him comfort and plan to go back to sleep.

This is a mistake.

More screaming.  I probably should have told him I was reaching for his hand before doing so; he just assumed it was the snake from the dream.

By this point, getting back to sleep is out of the question, so I decide I'm going to do ten or fifteen minutes of yoga.  Get good and stretched out and all that jazz.

Edie likes this plan.  A little too much, in fact.  Any time my hands got within a foot of the ground, there was an assumption that, yes, I reallreallyreally wanted to pick her up rightthatverysecond.  So fling herself into my hands she does.  I put her back on the bed.  She leaps back to me, unstoppable.  At this point I decide to just let her help out and entertain me.  Until we get to upward facing dog, that is it.  I'm all the way in the floor, and she realizes she can put her paws on my chest and stick her face right up next to mine.  Like, thisclose, y'all.  Then the running in circles happy dance commences, and I know there's no way any kind of exercise is happening this morning.  She's just too dang crazy.

Meanwhile, on the bed, Bailey continues to sleep.  Peacefully.  While Edie is running in circles on the floor, I walk calmly over to my sleepy boy.  I have great plans to gently lift him from the bed and wake him from his slumber.  And then crazy dog jumps into my hands as I'm lifting Bailey, which scares the beejeezus out of him.  So now he's wide awake, too.

I know!  We'll go for an extra long walk all the way down to the mailboxes at our apartment complex.  That'll be fun and Jay can sleep for an extra few minutes.  Awesome.  Except for the part where our housemate's dog is utterly dejected to be left inside and starts mournfully howling when we step outside.  And the part where they stop every few seconds to sniff or urinate on something.  And the part where Bailey poops not once, not twice, but three times, and I do not have enough baggies to pick it all up at this point.  Sorry, neighbors.  I end dragging them back to apartment because the fifteen minute walk has just been TOO MUCH for either of them.

As we approach our sidewalk to get back to our building, a very nice young woman is walking her eighty pound dog.  Who sees my eight pound dog, tucks his tail, and then back away.  Edie low growls at him.  Neighbor dog backs away even further, obviously frightened.  His owner tries to tell him it's okay, and I have Edie a safe distance from him.  But he's immovable.  And scared.  Since he's paralyzed by fear, we have to carefully walk around Neighbor and Neighbor Dog.  Thankfully, neither Edie or Bailey took to their usual barkfests, but Edie just kept with the low growling.  She had that big dog right where she wanted him, and he knew who was boss.  Poor thing.

We go inside, and both dogs proceed to get as close to the housemate's bed as they can.  It's naptime again. I go back in the bedroom, wake Jay up, and we get ready for work.  Two pairs of big, sad eyes watch us leave (housemate's dog and Bailey; Edie is too busy refusing to look at us).

And that's pretty much how it goes.  Not exactly a typical morning, but it definitely wasn't too out of the ordinary.  Wake up in a weird manner?  Check.  Canine insanity?  Check.  This is my normal.

Crap phone pictures ahead...

Crazy.

Sleepy.

On Gardens and Being a Senior Design Widow

Jay is in his last semester of his degree in electrical engineering and second semester of a senior design project.  Where he must work with a TEAM.  On their hours, which, as young, single men, generally means after 2pm until....after midnight.  Which means that I, as a nine to five gal, never see my husband awake.  Unless it is he waking me up when he gets home.  It is miserable, and I am pouty, but never fear.

The Best Friend since Preschool is coming to the rescue.  (She is a Pharmacy Widow in that her husband to be works out of town and only gets every other weekend off.  She has had to deal with far more separation than I and understands my irritability at not seeing The Boy.  But I digress.)  We are planning a weekend of various projects around her home, which include stripping wallpaper (how naughty!) and starting a garden (and dirty!) and cooking something delectable.  I believe she is especially excited about getting rid of the early nineties wallpaper in her bathroom, and I CANNOT WAIT to "help" her with "her" garden project.  (I guess this is where I confess that I want "her" to "have" a garden because I want to use her backyard since I, in an apartment, do not have one.  There.  Sorry about that.)  I won't get into any great debate over non-rural-area-house-and-garden-making (but go here if you are interested!), but I do want to try my hand at growing my own vegetables.

I've had an interest in growing things since I can remember.  My great aunt Nell always had these great catalogs where you could order seeds and seedling and sapling, and I was beyond fascinated.  I've tried my hand at growing things, and my most successful plant to date has been some Jasmine that I bought at the Biltmore Estate five years ago.  It is still alive, but that's only because it's been in my mother's possession.  The desert rose The Boy and I bought after we married died when we moved to Birmingham (he overwatered it...truth.)  Various flowers I've bought over the years died.  I managed to overwater what first looked to be a promising window box herbs.  Too much sun killed our St. John's Wort.  I let the rosemary freeze over the holidays.  The lettuce I tried to grow in boxes just didn't have the space to flourish, and I didn't know proper harvesting techniques to at least have the baby leaves from it.  My only minor success was broccoli.  I can remember steaming the biggest heads at the same time, and it was the greenest broccoli I'd ever seen.  I hope that having some actual space to grow things will yield more success, and that that hope and excitement will get me through the last few weeks of the dreaded design project.