elanya

Welp, here we go - I ma about to leave the town I have lived in for almost 10 years are return to Canada! We're stopping in Tennessee tonight and then up through the border at Detroit. I'm staying in Windsor until my stuff gets in and then off to my sister's place probably next weekend....

Mostly I'm just tired and hungry right now. I may or may not freak out later!

So, this morning I had three of my wisdom teeth extracted. Yay! I was super loopy when I got home, but now I have napped, whatever was in the IV has worn off, and I have some pretty solid pain meds in me. I was afraid today would be pretty much a lost day, but I think actually that I'm doing okay! I had a good nap and feel sore but otherwise good. So I'm going to try to answer this as an experiment to help me decide if yuletide writing will be a terrible plan :p

So here goes - today, kennesaw asked me:
If I could change one cultural trait about where I live, what would it be? ( One cultural trait? )

And again - I still have slots open! I have a slot open tomorrow, even, but if no one else fills it I know naryrising will give me a drabble prompt ^-^ On DW|On LJ

I was about to reassure you all that I did not admit any men into my house, but that's a lie. The Crismen's had popped out to pick up a dinner order and drop Jola off to me when they got the Code Maroon tornado warning over their cell phones, and asked if they could step in for a moment while we figured out what was going on. No tornadoes were currently in progress - just hell crazy rain and wind - so they continued on their way and I said I'd let them know if I heard anything. Apparently there was a Tornado spotted in Snook, and I did call to tell them, but they were already almost home by then. I haven't heard about any damage though, thankfully.

We did get hail though - a couple of times, even. The pieces I saw were maybe an inch square, but someone else I reported egg-sized pieces D: Hopefully small eggs? I took a picture after it had stopped of some of the pieces that had blown in to my doorway after it stopped the first time:



There was flooding in town - and more severe outside, as well. My courtyard was pretty much full of water while it was falling. I saw a shot of one of the newly-renovated buildings on campus (The YMCA building) awash with about half a foot of water. The entrance is in a low spot though, down a flight of stairs, and in retrospect I`m not surprised it happened. I'm more surprised no one foresaw the issue, as rain-induced flooding shouldn't be a huge surprise. I hope everything is okay at work, though!

This morning I took Jola for a walk through the park, which is really the drainage basin for Wolf Pen Creek and the related creek systems that run through town. I should have brought my camera! Although it isn't too badly flooded still, the amphitheater is closed still. I assume the moat around it is still overflowing its banks. I am pretty sure most of the area was underwater during the worst of the rain - there is brush and other debris wrapped around the park benches, and even woven in to the rails of the footbridge that crosses a good seven feet or more above the normal creek level. I can normally walk underneath it easily without ducking, and the water level is usually below that, so I'm guessing. There were places on the walking path covered in inch-thick ripples of mud, and there was silt washed over everything. It would have been impressive to see last night I'm sure, but considering how the water was still running this morning, I think you;d have to be crazy to go near it! I'll take my camera when I take her out tonight and see if there is still any craziness worth recording.

For now I think I need to have some tea and breakfast and get on with my day - I have cleaning and research to do :)

I don't know what it is about my house. Maze was not the first cat who decided that they wanted to live with me - really he's just the first I accepted. Now there is another - a fluffy little grey, white and peach calico. She is superduper sweet. She let me pet her and give her scritches. She tried to come in to the house, but I don't think that would be a great plan, as I don't know how healthy she is. So, instead I fed her. She was camped out on my stairwell when I left for work.

I think I have seen her around before, with a littermate (a fluffy orange tabby), but he was nowhere around today. The pair of them were stalking Jola a few weeks ago when I took her out at night. She let me pet her then, although the orange was more skittish.

She isn't anyone's cat at the moment, though she may have been before... She's not people shy, at least. her fur is a little matted in places, and she is dirty, but otherwise she seems in good shape.

So - anyone for a kitten?

This is the moon from tonight. The semicircle underneath it isn't a lens flare, unless it was a Divine lens flare. Or someone put JJ Abrams in charge of lighting the sky. When I first saw it - taking out Jola - the ring went all the way around in a perfect circle. It was amazing. I wish I could have got a better picture, but my lense isn't wide enough, and by the time I got the settings figured out, this was all that was left.

I have now pretty much managed to get everything done that I had planned to do yesterday :p Well, I could work on HIAS some more, I suppose, but that's a given. I've felt really drained and cranky all day, save for a few highlights. The weather was gorgeous today, and I biked home, then took Jola for a long walk along bee creek. I ventured further down along the creek and found where that path sort of hooks up with some parts of the botanical gardens. There is als a shortcut to c=goodwill down that was, so extra score. On a whim, I let J run off lead for a bit, and she was good, never getting too far out of site and more or less coming when I called her, without harassing anyone. She was bounding all in and out of the creek (the muddy, algae riddled creek -_-), which was super adorable also. And she then proceeded to roll in lots of grass to dry/clean herself off. How considerate! The chowder I made last night turned out pretty tasty, even if it is not as thick and creamy as I was hoping. My lemon cake is moist and dense and delicious.

So there's that.

Nevertheless, I'm feeling tired and cranky. Part of it may be the fact that I didn't get to sleep until late last night. I think there is more though. Not that I can be helpfully specific :p I don't know, but I feel very emotionally drained and my patience is not what it should be. Maybe it really is just rehashing all these tax problems. Ugh. Maybe I should aim to go to bed early.

However, I mean that in the cutlery sense - I need to wash dishes tonight -_-

I other news, I always mean to write up about the wildlife I often come across in my Jola related wanderings. There's often bunnies, sometimes skunks (thankfully not any for a while now - I'd say not since Christmas). Many squirrels, of course (grey), and lots of birds - mostly crows, mocking birds, and cardinals. Apparently cardinals form colonies, who knew? They're so pretty! I think I may have mentioned seeing the occasional snake before as well - green snakes and water snakes.

I have seen some more exciting things recently though. When dad and Jennifer came up, we saw an Egrette - some sort of white crane, anyway - in the bed of Bee Creek near the culvert where it passes under Southwest. That was Christmas eve. On New year's Day, I saw a geat Blue Heron in the same place. I took it for a good omen. When I eventually remembered to look it up, the Internet, at least, told me that herons are a symbol of fortune and/or wisdom. I'll take either, thanks :V

The day before yesterday, I saw a beautiful brown raptor of some sort. Maybe it was even an eagle. Beautiful creature. I've got to start carrying my camera - I saw him(her?) again this morning, sitting in a tree along the path at Lemon tree park. I haven't seen him fly, he just sort of... appears siting, and generally disappears when I am telling Jola to stop pulling.

Well, not *only* happy maybe, but Jola loves this kind of thing.

Which is why when I got up this morning and considered that she was going to need to go out to at least pee, I may as well go whole hog. So I crammed myself into my East German military surplus foul weather gear and, so suited, took her for a slightly abbreviated walk along our normal route.
she was having a grand time leaping in puddles, carrying around wind blown branches and rolling in wet grass. I managed to stay completely dry save for a stray lock of hair, but I wish I had worn a hat to keep the rain out of my eyes. Also now I smell like plastic and my skin is dry and itchy, but this can be easily remedied.

It was fun times! We didn't see anyone else out walking, though the Baptist church on Southwest had taken in evacuees, and some were standing under the overhang there, possibly smoking. There were a few cars out on the roads, though. The creek in the park is overspilling its banks, which was fun to ford. We saw a flock of grackles but no other wildlife. If I take her out again this afternoon, I'll see if my 'all weather' camera is up to the challenge :) And remember to wear a hat.

I quite enjoy this kind of weather too, though I admit to still being a little sleepy. I was up until after four - we had a hurricane party over at a friend's place, though of course it didn't actually start raining until we were leaving ;)

I obviously still have power and internets, and there's no other consequences to date. Wind is mostly from the north, and I only have one teeny north facing window. I will second cheez_ball's assessment and say that the storm passed to the east of us, however I did check on the radar. Really, though, it has rained harder here just in the course of a normal storm. I think the main differences are that this is gog to last longer and it is windier. Wooh!

Time to get dressed and find some breakfast. Maybe I'll make pancakes....

it is looking like we may get more out of Ike than i was expecting tomorrow - at the least it will be hella stormy, and I should expect to lose power. So if I'm not around, that's why :V

I thik I'm pretty well prepared though! I'm going to cook a bunch of rice casserole later though - it will keep and I can eat it cold if I lose power for too long.

I am thinking of having people over tomorrow. But there really aren't that many people left around that I know local, and certainly not many with overlapping friends groups. Plus tomorrow is BSG night!

Oooh, decisions, decisions....

Any of the few local peeps who read this have any input?