tropical storm fay - VIDEO

Between all our sun filled days and clear summer nights, there are ocassional storm front "interludes", like we experienced yesterday. For my money, it's a small price to pay for living in paradise.


click the arrow to start video. run time 2:37

comfort zone

Well, yesterday was "Fay Day" and as most of us expected, she was a non-starter. Except for all the plant life on the rock singing Handel's Hallelujah Chorus to the rain, it wasn't much to write home about.

But, I'll admit, it was kind of cool the day before the storm, after two years of not having to worry about it, to run out to Winn-Dixie and stock up on "emergency canned goods", like Progresso Soups and Mary Kitchen Corned Beef Hash, that I could squirrel away in my cupboard along with all those other "emergency canned goods" that I haven't had the need to reach for.

Now I know what you're thinking and you're right. . .
We've been lucky, storm-wise, for the past couple of years but I shouldn't take anything for granted. Well, I don't.
All those canned goods are stored up there with gallons of bottled water, jugs of propane, a Coleman stove and waxed wooden matches to get the fire started.
In the other cupboard are my back-up phone (because cordless phones don't work when the power is out), two flashlights, a lantern, batteries enough to keep them lit for more than a month and a crank up the dynamo Red Cross radio that gives me AM, FM, and NOAA.

But for all that it seems our luck has held yet again. As far as I've heard, there was no significant damage or loss of life and, with the possible exception of all the Miami media folks sitting outside La Concha all day in the rain, no one suffered much.

Being prepared is the thing. Whether our world goes to hell in a bucket because of a hurricane or an economic collapse or government stormtroopers come to meet us at midnight (the Patriot Act says it's legal for that to happen), if we know who we are, have what we need and are prepared to leave all the rest behind, we will survive.
Our faith in survival, is the comfort zone.

when wicked weather this way comes

I wouldn't have normally posted this but seeing as we've got Fay on the way it seemed, timely.

This is one of the collection of impressionist abstracts I've painted over the years and it's title is, "When Wicked Weather This Way Comes". Painted just after Hurricane Wilma came through, it is my impression of how the ominous darkening sky appeared as the storm front approached.

In case you're interested, the original painting is acrylic on canvas gallery wrap, measures 36" x 36" and is available for purchase.

Good Luck & Stay Safe everyone. . .