Tag: Weather

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Life With Lilly Episode 4 – Street Chicken

Well, #LillyNO and I just got back from a whirlwind trip through the Midwest.  You may recall (if you read this stuff) that I had mentioned leaving her with a friend for this trip.

Yeah, about that…

If you’ve ever had one of those moments where you stop and ask yourself “what the #%&$ were you thinking?” then you can relate to me last week.  To refresh your memory, I took #LillyNo in to get her spayed and micro-chipped.

Two days before I was going out-of-town for a week.

Sigh.  I know.

She did great with her surgery, although that first day, a couple of hours after we got back home, I took her off the bed so she could go outside for a potty break.  And I was handling her gingerly, even more so than usual given her surgery.  When I set her on the floor she let out THE most mournful yelp that lasted every bit of 25-30 seconds and she cowered at my feet.  I almost broke into tears on the spot.  And, in that instant, I asked myself what the #%&$ I was thinking by leaving her behind.  I couldn’t do it.  I called my friend Jacquie and thanked her, apologizing profusely, but knew I had to bring my poor puppy with me.  By the next day #LillyNO was feeling significantly better (Thankfully) and we prepped for the trip.  Which was pretty darn cool, if I do say so myself.  And I just did, so.  The purpose of this particular trip was A.) to marry my wonderful god-daughter (to her also wonderful sweetie pie, duh) and B.) swing through Nashville on the way home for a concert (naturally).  And both events went off smoothly.  Except for the whole almost forgetting to do the paperwork which actually, you know, marries the happy couple.  But that’s a story for another time.  I’ve got ample filler here without that tale.  Besides, the two littlest grandkids were thrilled to have #LillyNO in for a visit.  As evidenced by – adorbs, right?

For starters, the Little Diamond scored HUGE bonus points with old Grandpa Joe on my first day there.  As she sat on my lap, looking up at my unshaved chin she proceeded to count all the dark hairs in my stubble.  Now, tbh, there aren’t many.  But to the mind of a three-year old, it was a significant number and she proclaimed it as such.  Heart officially warmed.  Her other particular highlights came during the festivities on Saturday.  As the flower girl (read-flower princess) she marched down the aisle, on time, with a huge smile on her face, stopping at my leg to give me a great big hug until she went back to Mommy and Daddy for the duration of the ceremony.  She was adorable.  Later that night, at the reception, we had the fortune to be seated in close proximity to the cake.  This was no small deal to a cake fan of her magnitude (mine too) (because apple/tree, etc) but shortly after the cake was taken back in to the kitchen to be cut, she looked over at the cake table and said, in a very loud, very precocious three-year old voice “Somebody stole the cake!”  After being reassured the cake would, in fact, be back soon, she was fine.  There’s nothing lower than a cake thief, especially for someone as fond of cake as LD.  Me too, btw.

I’d also like to thank Illinois for providing gale-force winds on Saturday afternoon, along with snow blowing horizontally.  Quick reminder, I just had two Tropical Storms pass through my area and neither provided the wind speeds I saw.  Also it was, like 50 degrees warmer here.

Let’s just say I’m not remotely sorry I won’t be back there for the winter “festivities”.

Nashville was a lot of fun.  One of the guys from the firehouse met me down there.  Tom is a great guy in general, and a great guy to see a concert with in particular, and we saw a fantastic show.  Jason Isbell at the Ryman Auditorium.  If you’ve never checked out his music, please do, it’s amazing.

I also learned #LillyNO is apparently a subspecies henceforth known as Urbana Canis (h/t to Google Translate for giving me Latin) aka Urban Dog.  She loved Nashville.  I suppose it helped that she was treated like Leona Helmsley by the hotel staff.  Although, unlike Leona, #LillyNO loved them right back.  She was given numerous treats, a travel water bowl, and a tennis ball along with being fawned over every time they saw her.  Her elevator skills are pretty impressive too.  As soon as the doors opened, she would walk in and take a spot in the far corner, at my feet.  She sat patiently until we got to our floor and then dutifully pranced off to our room.  I think her favorite part, however, came during our walks.  She not only encountered many adoring humans (and was appropriately charming to them all) she also found quite a different bill of fare as compared to walking around our yard.  Now, for background, by all indications rabbit poop must be classified as quite the canine delicacy.  Sophie *skypoint* used to scavenge the backyard meticulously in search of it and #LillyNO has spent roughly 93.1% of her time outdoors here doing the same thing.  But rabbit poop doesn’t hold a candle to…

Street chicken.

Seriously.

I pulled no less than six chicken bones, one pork rib bone, two pieces of bread, something that may or may not have been polenta, and what I believe to have been prehistoric pizza crust from her jaws.  In two days.  And that’s not counting the things I saw before she did and steered her away from.  Still and all, the #LillyNO experience in Nashville contained many more positives.  An ample opportunity for human attention being foremost on her list, as seen here, on the sidewalk in front of a monolithic coffeehouse across the street from Vanderbilt University, awaiting the next person to speak gibberish to her and prove that she is, in fact, kind of a big deal.

As she should be.  She’s worth it.  And fwiw, I promise to do my best to keep the “what was I thinking” moments to a minimum.

At least as far as #LillyNO is concerned.

Peace

 

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ICRTD Hurricane Edition 2.0

What does one write about when one doesn’t know what to write about?

No, really, I’d like to know.

Ok, since I won’t really get an appropriate answer, at least not in a manner timely enough to write this particular post, how bout this?

MOAR HURRICANES!

Michael is currently making his way toward the Florida panhandle, and after landfall there, is due to come through central North Carolina.  Yay?  On the plus side, for me, this storm will have spent far more time over land than Florence did before getting by me, and it’s also (allegedly) a faster moving storm.  I’ve seen rainfall estimates of 1″-3″ and 3″-5″ depending on the specific track he takes, so either way it shouldn’t be horrible.  Again, I do this not looking for sympathy (or to give certain, unnamed people any Schadenfreude) but rather since I’m not above gloating about nice weather here I feel like it’s only fair for me to write about named storms cruising through my area.

Let’s see, what else do we have here?  Ok, how bout this?  I’m currently at my local coffeehouse, although, truth be told, it’s more like a restaurant that has baristas too, and can I just say Jesus it’s loud in here.  I mean I’ve got my headphones on, cranking out one of my favorite playlists and while my personal volume is moderate, I can still hear the dull roar of several dozen conversations rumbling in the background.  That’s no bueno.  At one point in the last year or two I considered opening up a coffeehouse as a retirement gig.  And then I realized that, you know, that’s kind of a lot of work and I don’t know that I really want to impose that on my retired ass.  Yet, it’s something this town sorely lacks, imho.  An actual coffeehouse.  I like this place, I do, the people are all very nice, and several of them now recognize me by my go-to order (large vanilla latté [or is it lattè?]  I checked Wikipedia and found both used…) which I really enjoy.  And there are three other places in town that call themselves coffeehouses; but one is in a chain book store, one is a former bar that doesn’t open until 10 in the morning and still has the pool table from its previous incarnation, and the third is small, dark, and dingy and not at all conducive to my caffeinated enjoyment.  And caffeinated enjoyment is not to be taken lightly.  In fact, I’m kind of tickled with that combination of words and you may well see it frequently from here on out.  Caffeinated enjoyment.  Kinda rolls right off the tongue, no?

I did stumble across a really nice place up in Greensboro, right downtown, that I really like.  The problem, although not a huge one, is that it takes me a little over thirty minutes to get there from here.  So it’s a pain, but not a deal breaker, at least for me.  And certainly not a big enough hassle to make me rethink my future as a small businessman.  Unless I hit the lotto tonight.  And since I’ll most likely forget to buy a ticket for it, I’d say the chance of winning is exponentially worse than if I did buy one.

Lastly (I think) I’ve got another trip home to Illinois coming up in a little over a week.  I’ll be gone from central NC for about a week with my trip split into two parts; a family wedding on the 20th and then a swing through Nashville for a concert.  My plan as of now is to leave #LillyNO with my realtor.  I didn’t really want to have to leave her locked up for such a long stretch during the wedding festivities and then also I didn’t really want to leave her penned up in a hotel room while I’m at the concert.  I know she’s fine at home for several hours, but if she barks the whole time she’s locked up (and I don’t know that she does, but if she did) in the hotel room, well, then she’s bothering a lot of people unnecessarily.  But still, the thought of her being somewhere else, no matter how well she’s cared for (and I know she’ll be well cared for there) kind of doesn’t sit well with me.  She’s going through a bit of a terrible two or threenager phase now and even though she is perfectly capable of producing short periods of time where she’s a total jerk, I still enjoy having her around and she’s still adorable AF, you know?  So I’ve got some contemplating to do.

I’ve also got some lawn care to do before Michael gets here, because apparently it’s against protocol to have a less than tidy lawn before a named storm blows in and dumps a bunch more leaves, acorns, and branches onto your yard.  Who knew?  Certainly not me.  But judging from the neighborhood activity the last couple of days, that’s the deal, so… I’m off.

Peace

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ICRTD Hurricane Edition

You know, I was part way through a post about my recent travels and with the way my phone has blown up the last couple days, I figured it might be prudent to address the weather.  I’m not sure if you’re aware, but as it turns out A HURRICANE IS COMING AND IT’S GOING TO MAKE LANDFALL IN NORTH CAROLINA!!!!!!

First off, let me just express gratitude for all the family and friends that have called/texted/DM’d/Messaged me the last few days to make sure I’m safe.  It kinda shocked me, but then I realized it’s because I’ve got the coolest friends on the planet and I appreciate each and every one of you, whether you reached out to me or gave me a few moments thought out of your day.  So thanks, I’m humbled, truly.

Now, to The Storm (capitalization mine) that approaches…

Among the reasons I chose central North Carolina were the consideration that any hurricanes that might come this way would, in theory at least, weaken significantly by the time it came in this far.  Believe me, I have no desire to “tough it out” when it comes to 100+ mile per hour winds and 25+ inches of rain all at the same time.  I have what I consider a healthy respect for Mother Nature.  Being a native Midwesterner I experienced several tornadoes over the course of my life, some closer than others, but I knew enough about them to know that it was foolhardy to try and stare one down.  Tornadoes, of course, are fairly short-lived phenomena.  Hurricanes, as I’m sure you are aware, last for days.  If the experts recommend I should evacuate, I’m gone.

Now, please don’t take this the wrong way, I don’t mean to suggest any of the concerned calls or offers of a place to stay were out of line, rather I know they were placed out of genuine concern for my safety.  And again, I appreciate you.

The initial storm track after landfall was actually fairly close to me, within fifty miles or so.  But even at that the storm that was expected to pack winds around 125 mph and dump 25″-30″ of rain on the coast was only expected to bring 30 mph winds and 3″-6″ of rain to this part of the state.  Granted that’s larger than a typical storm, but perfectly manageable, at least to me.  As long as the storm doesn’t produce six weeks of sub zero temperatures (you know, like January in northern Illinois) I think I’ll be fine.  Further, as of about 45 minutes ago the National Weather Service Hurricane Center now predicts the storm will move south and west after landfall, crossing through South Carolina instead of North Carolina.  I haven’t seen the local updates yet, but I feel safe in assuming that will lessen the impact of the storm on this area even more.  Of course, I’ll continue to monitor the updates and I promise not to do anything (too) stupid once the storm finally gets here.

I mean, after all, who wants to be on Florence’s list?  Amirite?

Peace

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Road Trips

Well, I had fully intended to do this yesterday, but adulting got in the way, as it is wont to do from time-to-time.  And in the true spirit of the subtitle to this blog “where I write things about stuff” I’m going to hit to all fields today.  Well from left-center to right-center, at least.

Since I’ve got my hyphen quota out-of-the-way…

Wait, one quick side note here.  I love adjectives.  And I love the storytelling aspect of writing.  Sometimes, when I come across a particularly beautiful piece of the art, I feel compelled to share it and I want to put this in here.  Background on it is this; William Nack was a sportswriter for Sports Illustrated for 23 years, covering, among other things, the career of Secretariat.  He passed away last week at the age of 77 after a fight with cancer.  For the uninitiated, Secretariat was (imho) the greatest athlete of all time.  As I read some of Mr. Nack’s stories, this line in his tribute to an amazing horse stood out to me.

“Oh, I knew all the stories, knew them well, had crushed and rolled them in my hand until their quaint musk lay in the saddle of my palm.”

It’s one of those lines that makes me want to write forever, the image it projects in my mind’s eye.  The article itself is a long read, but it’s stunning in it’s beauty, an homage to a greatness seldom seen and I highly recommend making the time to read it.

To the trip.

I left Memphis Sunday morning, heading back to central North Carolina.  I’d gone there for a concert and a little touristing, more about both later.  The impetus for this post was the trip from Hell.  Not really, but Sunday was one long ass day behind the windshield, let me tell you.  No, really, that’s why I’m doing this.

I got on the road about 8:00 AM central time and according to the GPS it was going to be about a ten-hour drive.  That’s about what it took me to get there on Thursday, so I had no reason to doubt it.  I knew there was a storm out ahead of me, but I was hopeful I could stay behind it.

Ha!

The first thing that jumped out at me (not literally) was the number of highway patrol cars out on the interstate, running radar.  And reaping the benefits of their actions.  I’m not sure why, other than the easy pickings due to the quantity of drivers with a heavy right foot.  I’m sure the Tennessee state coffers were enriched significantly that day.  If I didn’t know better, I’d swear they had a quota to meet too.  But, according to my friends with stars on their chests, ticket quotas (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean?) don’t exist…

I saw not less than eight officers in the first hundred miles moving east from Memphis.  I need to note here that none of them carried my name in their ticket book, so, that’s a win.  And, despite the need to monitor their presence, I was making good time.  Outstanding time, in fact.  I felt like I may have been able to shave at least a half hour off my travel time.

Until I caught the aforementioned weather.  About half way through Tennessee.  And can I just say that Tennessee is one wide damn state.  I mean, really.  Roughly 450 miles from Memphis to the North Carolina border on I-40 in case you were wondering.  As you might imagine (go ahead, imagine away) this length of trip, sharing the roadway with throngs of others, each with their own places to go (and a variety of urgencies to get there) may elicit an occassional bad word from yours truly.  By my count, a rough guess, but it’s still mine, I used my favorite twelve letter word (rhymes with “brother trucker”)  a minimum of 27 times.  This may surprise you, but I’m quite certain that if you ask the Oldest One or the Boy Child, they will confirm that is a reasonable estimate.  When they were much younger we would have to drive through downtown St. Charles fairly often and they learned some creative and colorful language earlier than they probably should have thanks to my reaction to the other drivers there.

It was somewhere east of Nashville, maybe an hour or so east, where I caught up with the rain.  An inconvenience perhaps, but not that big of a deal.  I had gained considerable time, so I really wasn’t all that bothered.  Until I got closer to Knoxville and hit a traffic jam.  About ten miles worth of a traffic jam.  That took me over an hour to get through.  So much for early arrival.  I thought I’d seen a sign as I approached the backup, something about a wreck ahead, but if that was the case it had long since been cleared up by the time I got through it.  Things flowed well for about an hour when, approaching the border, Tennessee traffic gave me one last body cavity search and for no apparent reason I hit another traffic jam in excess of thirty minutes.  Into North Carolina the rain picked up in frequency and intensity.  I made it into Asheville for fuel and coffee and figured I’d be home in three hours or so.

Again, Ha!

Figuring 8:30 for my eta home, an eleven hour plus trip was not ideal, especially the way it started out, but I was ok with it.  The volume of traffic had lightened considerably and the rain had pretty much stopped so things weren’t too bad.  Until I got near my exit.  Brief explanation, there are approximately 47 exits labeled route 64 on this stretch of I-40.  Ok, that’s not exactly accurate, but there are three plus one exit marked for the town of Mocksville, which is the first town I pass through on the way from I-40 to my home.  I, of course, chose the wrong one.  The best part of that choice was that I didn’t realize how route 64 curves.  When I choose the correct exit, I turn right to head home.  As I came up the exit ramp I realized I should have gone five more miles to the next exit.  But I had seen a sign advising another (#*@#*%) traffic jam and thought I’d stay on 64.

I turned right.

I should’ve turned left.

I was almost eight miles down the road when I saw I was heading west.  Pro tip, my home was east of me.  I turned around headed back to the interstate.  With callous disregard for a potential traffic jam I drove east on I-40 and made it to the correct exit.  Not a brake light in sight btw.  Insert eye roll emoji >here<.  Coming in to Mocksville I came up behind someone with an aversion to the speed limit.  And not in a good way.  What do you call someone who consistently drives 10-15 mph below the speed limit?  I call it the car in front of me.

I finally pulled in the driveway a couple of minutes after 9:00 PM.

This has caused me to rethink my trip home next weekend.  Not making it, I’ll still be in Illinois for an extended stay, but rather this; it’s a 14 hour drive under good circumstances.  I’m chopping that sucker into more manageable bites.

I don’t think my vocabulary is ready for another all day road trip.

Peace

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Leadership. And Lack Of Same. Oh Yeah, Bonus Weather Update Too…

The good news is; the ground is too warm and it’s melting as soon as it hits.  The bad news is; it’s snowing again in central North Carolina.  I know some will take joy at those last two sentences, you know who you are, (wtf indeed) but I figure since I have, on occasion, weather shamed here, I’ve got to own up to the shite weather too so…

This one has percolated far too long so I’m just gonna move on and let it go where it may cause I need to post something for chrissakes.  Bear in mind the timeline is a wee bit off, but still.

Before I get to the titular topic, I’m gonna drop some, well I wouldn’t exactly call it filler, but rather, the events of my last few days.

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, I’m (*timeline alert*) currently traveling via Amtrak back to North Carolina from Washington D.C. where several hundred union firefighters met with our elected officials to promote legislation to try to improve working conditions, health, and safety or firefighters across the country.  It’s an annual pilgrimage where, in addition to fighting the “good fight” we also get the chance to catch up with our brothers and sisters from across the country.

Let me amend something from the previous paragraph… Due to track work, we’re currently crawling through Richmond, VA on the way back to NC.  Grand scheme of things it’s not that big of a deal, it’s not like I have any plans this evening so it really doesn’t matter if I get back later than I planned.  Just an inconvenience.  Over all, I’ve really enjoyed this trip to and from D.C. and I’ll definitely look for more trips to take by rail in the future.

As with air travel, you cross paths with a unique cross-section of America when you use mass transit.  For instance –

I witnessed one of the more unique drink combinations ever on that same leg of the trip.  The woman sitting next to me for a couple of hours ordered, and I swear to you I’m taking no literary license with this; a hot tea with 2 creamers, 2 honey packets, 4 Splenda, and 2 sugars.  Again, I’m not even joking.  Talk about diversification of your sugar portfolio (h/t to Kent for that line btw)

Also, I continue to be amazed at the attire some people choose for their travels.  Again, no throwing of stones intended, and I get it that you choose comfort over almost anything else, but what part of your brain says it’s ok to wear, essentially, pajamas on public mass transportation?  And if you’re that committed to comfort, why not go all the way and leave the gym shoes at home?  Slippers would be the perfect match to your jammies, no?

Now that I’ve got that out-of-the-way, let’s talk about Leaders.

Leaders lead.  It’s what they do, which makes for an easy way to title them.  Leaders, when they no longer lead, are, imho, no longer leaders.  I can point, with relative ease, to an example that hits close to home for me and also for many of my regular readers.  My union.  Not at the local level and not at the state level.  Those two groups are both blessed with dedicated, hard-working, responsive, and responsible leadership.

Not so much at the national level.

Throughout the entirety of my career in the fire service, I was taught that leaders lead.  They decide things.  Sometimes they are faced with two or more awful options and must choose the most palatable.  Or the least offensive.  And they need to prepare, both themselves and those for whom they’re charged with advocating, for whatever outcome their decision elicits.  That’s what leaders do.  They don’t “sit one out” they choose.  If they get pushback from the rank and file, they explain their rationale.

I may have mentioned this here at some point over the last couple years, but I feel strongly enough about this that, frankly, I don’t care and I’ll gladly repeat myself.  Without getting too much into my personal politics (and if you spend any time here, you probably know what way I lean) in the build up to the 2016 election, my union chose not to endorse anyone.  Neither candidate.  In my time in this great union, I have been told, countless times – “we support those that support us, regardless of whether their name has a ‘D’ or ‘R’ after it.” and I have taken that very phrase back to my local as well as at numerous meetings across the state of Illinois as a member of our Labor History committee.  And I believed those words.  They were important to me.  I know a lot of guys on-the-job that are far more conservative than I am.  And that’s fine.  I respect your right to an opposing opinion on many topics.  But, to me, the opinion that outweighs them all is this one.  Does a candidate or an incumbent politician support my position as a member of Organized Labor?  That’s the one that gets my vote.

You know what?  I can’t even finish on this leadership (or lack of same) rant.  It’s frickin’ SNOWING here.  In North Carolina.  On March 21st.  The day after the Vernal Equinox.  Sure it’ll get “up” into the mid 40’s today but come on.

Sigh.

Peace.

PS – As I wrote here I was asked to contribute a regular column at the official retired guy magazine for the Illinois Association of Retired Firefighters.  I was, of course, thrilled at the offer.  I also felt like they should get some kind of exclusivity so I declined to post that column here.  However, since the newest edition is currently going to press (sounds so official doesn’t it?) I figure it’s probably ok to share my pearls of wisdom *snark* here now.  So that’ll be coming up in a couple days…