Happy Halloween and Samhain Blessings

I am drinking my first cup of coffee of the morning with a salted caramel creamer. Yummy! I hear buzz saws going on out in the neighborhood. People cutting up fallen branches. I cannot say it is too early for that shit cause it is almost 11am here. Ever since my CSF leaks, I have been sleeping in more.
 It is still yucky outside. The sun comes and goes. There are alot of trees down around the city. The Mayor did not cancel Halloween because he said it was not his right to do so. That is a parents right as to whether their kids should go out or not. He did say kids should be supervised because of the situation around the city with clean up. How can you cancel Halloween? It only comes on October 31. Once that day is gone, so is Halloween. You cant have it on November 7th cause it fits into your schedule. Some 1st selectman and Mayors are taking a beating for it.  I think you should leave it up to the discretion of the parents.

One of the residents of our city taped this video two hours (8pm)before the evening high tide that made this storm the clusterfuck that it became. By that time, the winds had died down quite a bit. I am not faulting the guy for bringing his kid and you shouldn't either. Where they are situated is an easy out behind them and I found out that they do not live far. I hate people that love to point out when a parent is being reckless, blah blah blah. Get the fuck over yourself! The kid is fine and he saw something that HOPEFULLY he will never see again. Damn global warming.
 On a normal day, you can sit on that wall and look down a few feet to the beach. Then the beach stretches out quite a bit. I am not good at feet and measurements. Maybe a fifty foot stretch of beach to the shore. Maybe a bit less but it was a good sized small beach. We used to go there when we joined the hospital`s beach.
 So knowing that, you can just imagine that the river is basically up to the flood wall. That is some scary shit, huh?

  I am going to not over do it but I want to clean up around here. I have three pumpkins that need carving because I want the damn seeds. LOL
 Chicken quesadillas for dinner tonight and I think I might bake some cookies. Might being the operative word. The whole house is a cluttered mess. Like i said, I cannot bend over much. It seems I am the only one that sees this shit!

I hope you all have a wonderful night. Many Samhain blessings to my Pagan friends and Happy Halloween to all you wicked ones. Send me your Tootsie Rolls! Those are my favorite!

I survived Sandy!

Green`s Harbor beach Sunday afternoon

 *disclaimer..I did not take any of these photos. They are from my friend Matt, the NL Patch, and NL firefighter`s union. So do not think I was a fool for going out during the storm.*

We survived!!  We never lost power or cable. The house is still the same as it was on Saturday. Except for a few branches in the yard and everything is dirty from the dirty Sandy rain. I thought I would share some pictures.
This one up top is the city`s free beach. You see that yellow building in the distance? That is where the sand should be. The water went right up to the wall!

Pequot Avenue/Green`s Harbor beach

This is that same area but this morning. The entire length of this road is impassible today and probably for the next few days.

Pequot Avenue/Lighthouse Inn area

This is the other end of Pequot Avenue. Fucking mess. These are all private beaches along the seawall. One of the beaches lost their pavilion that has been there since like my entire life or more. Washed away.

Here is a picture near my neck of the woods. A really old gnarly tree finally fell over in the park near my house. I wondered when that old bastard of a tree would finally get cut down or taken down.

Montauk ave near Blydenburg

Lower Montauk Avenue

I heard that lots and lots of trees were taken down with this storm. Trees landing on houses all over the area. No deaths here from the storm!

The skies are still a bit gloomy but you get peeks of sun and blue sky here and there. I had to open the windows in the dining room because it is warm and humid. It was a weird storm. I have never dealt with a cold hurricane. It was chilly throughout the whole thing. Once it was over, the temperature rose about 10 degs F.

 I am going to slowly wake up, get dressed, and go out and survey the street. I need to dig out my rake cause there is a shit load of branches and leaves.
I hope that if YOU experienced Sandy in any way that you are doing okay also. Give a shout out to let me know you are ok.
Back to coffee.....

Some much storm, so little time

Hurricane of 1938 New London CT Harbor

This picture is from the aftermath of the 1938 hurricane that made landfall right here in my little city of New London. You can see the train tracks toward the top of the picture. It was a devastating storm. My parents lived in Boston at the time (they were kids) and they remembered it vividly. It was awful.
 Hurricane Sandy will be coming into our area probably Monday night. The weather forecasters and the meteorologists are giving me quite the headache. I think they are all owned and operated by Lowe`s and Home Depot. The storm has been downgraded. It will most likely be a tropical storm by the time it gets here. I am more of an alarmist when it comes to this shit but this storm is going to be like a strong Nor`easter. They got people flipping out thinking we are going to have sustained 70 mph winds for three days straight! That is not the case. I was reading one of our local news sources, Waterford Patch. They gave it to us straight and said they would not sensationalize the storm. It will be rainy, windy and crappy out. There may be some trees that go down and some pockets of power outages. I hope the good Lord it does not happen here cause I got a deep freezer full of food. Thankfully we have a food spoilage rider on our home insurance.
  We have some stuff that could fly away in a stiff breeze that I need to put away today and tomorrow. I have 2 cases of water bottles. I have flashlights and batteries. Emergency candles and $1 store holders. Matches and lighters. We have plenty of non perishable food. Hoping that a tree does not fall on our house and that we do not lose power. Those are two of my wishes for this storm. I have to scrub out both bathtubs today so that they will be clean when we fill them with water (for flushing) if we need it.

  Tomorrow is Natalie`s 19th birthday. This was her gift from her Daddy and I. Are we not the most Puritan of parents? *batting eyelashes*
She is wearing her heart on her sleeve. I was so freaking jealous! I want a new one! I just have those pesky bills to pay. Darn it all.
 She has a nice ice cream cake in the freezer and I am going to make vanilla cup cakes too. We had planned on going out but she wants to stay in because the storm is going to start up a bit on Sunday night. I am going to make Fred`s famous to us chicken wings, garlic mashed potatoes, and I have to get some string beans but my ass doesn't want to venture out to the store cause all the crazy hurricane people are out there. I will figure something out.

 As you can probably tell, I am feeling better about my situation. I am still freaked the fuck out but I cannot hold onto that sadness and gloom all the time. I am moving on. Hopefully I will get some good facts about my surgery on November 9th. The same morning after I see my surgeon, I go in for Pre admission testing and talk to them about making payment arrangements. Then the following week I go in for the surgery. I have had conflicting stories about what is going to happen. I think if my Dr and his PA tell me I will be in the hospital for one day, then I am not getting the kind of surgery that I suspected and was told about by others like me. Because they all were in the hospital for days and had a lumbar drain and shit. I cant be there for one day with a lumbar drain. And they do not send you home with that. So I do not know. That is when I decided to stop stressing and stop talking to those people that are trying to help you.  They were making me nuts!
   My double ear infection is doing better, I guess. I can hear more but right ear still feels like full of cotton. I just had a feeling like somebody stabbed me in the head with an ice pick but I think that is because of the storm that is coming our way. I will hug my bottle of Advil till it is over.





That is about it. We will be carving our pumpkins pretty soon and I will share pics of that. We were going to decorate outside but then the whole major storm of the century popped up so we decided against it. I have a shit load of Halloween candy upstairs in my closet. I wonder if we will get any kids at all this year. Oh well, I will hand some out to the mail man and the squatters down the street.

Less pain and a Hurricane

Last night before I went to sleep, my right ear was popping. That is a good sign. I have no pain in my ears or in my throat today. I am still deaf but I think the 10 days of medicine should take care of that. I have to take it twice a day.
 I am going to take it easy today. I am cleaning the dishes and going to make a simple dinner of Pasta Pomadoro for dinner. I have boneless chicken to cut into chunks to grill and I have some broccoli I will steam for on the side. If they want to dump it in their pasta, go for it. I am going to make it a simple day for myself. I do have to leave in an hour to pick them up from work and school. It is a cold and rainy one today.
Hey! Remember that Umbrella plant that I bought for like $7 at the grocery store because she was big and beautiful and I just HAD to have it. Yeah, her ass is outside in the back dying a slow death. No matter where I put it, watered it, didn't water it, re potted it, or anything....it would keep dropping leaves. Even the new leaves. I would put it someplace and wait and see. Nope.
I finally had enough of looking at the sad skeleton of death and through her outside to die. Admit it. You have done this too? I try to save plants because I love them so but this one was giving me the angries. I decided she was not to live here because she doesn't like it. That is fine. See how she likes the first snow of the season. hehehehe
 I have to actually pay attention to the weather more closely in the next few days. There is Hurricane Sandy out in the Atlantic. It could possibly impact us on coastal CT on Saturday/Sunday. Sunday is Natalie`s birthday. I hope it is just like a Nor`easter. A bunch of wind and rain and nothing else. Or it goes out to see. Having a hurricane this late in the season is really global warming-ish...isnt it?
  That will suck if it happens on her actual birthday (Sunday) because we were going to go out to eat at our favorite pizza place, Ocean Pizza. Let`s cross some fingers that the jet streams will change and push old Sandy out to sea.
 Okay, I am done here. Going to wash some cups and then watch some Supernatural.

Have a great day!