Tag: Climate

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I’m torn with the rain.

On the one hand I really like hearing rain on the roof. It’s a perfect day to snooze and not worry about anything. On the other hand, it’s a perfect day to stay in my sweats & watch 1950s sci-fi movies.

I had one of those nights lat night where I was tired, went to bed, and bang my brain said, “Nope! I’m going to start thinking right now.”

Needless to say, it wasn’t very restful.

Maybe I’ll get a bowl of cereal and watch Looney Toons DVDs. That would have been a typical thing for me to do on a rainy Saturday in my childhood.

I’ve scanned the national news. I’m sure that the local news is doing one of their “StormWatch” special coverage events providing moment by moment details of local flooding and holding their breath that some disaster will occur so they’ll have something to lament.

My phone just went off with an emergency alert about flash floods.

I’m hoping for a break in the rain to go for a walk. Right now there’ve been squall lines passing through about every 10 minutes. The storm will let up a bit giving me hope, then kick up a notch.

At this rate I’m not going to close my rings today. I don’t mind walking in light misty rain, but neither Jesse or I like walking in downpours with the wind whipping around us. I won’t mention the clean up of our muddy foot prints, or the smell of wet dog.

I’m leaning more toward Looney Toons & snoozing.

 

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What is this? Ice and water from the sky?

The sky opened up yesterday.

Pea sized hail, thunder rumbling, and suddenly heavy rain.

It was great.

The pup wasn’t thrilled, but also didn’t act afraid of the thunder. At one point he was lying next to the slider with his nose against the screen sniffing the air.

When the hail first started, he poked his head out, investigated a couple of hailstones then came back in to lay down in his favorite spot.

I’ve had dogs that were totally freaked out by thunder. This guy was completely nonplused by the strange noises from the sky.

After the rain stopped, we both went outside to try & figure out why there was a helicopter circling around our local area. I thought perhaps there’d been a lightening strike that started a fire. 

But after a few minutes of circling, the helicopter flew off and there was nothing else. Brief light rain and fresh air saw us into the evening.

The pup was a little bummed that we didn’t get to play ball as we usually do. 

Thunder was one of the concerns I had about moving back to the East coast with Jesse. Perhaps it won’t be a problem if I choose to make that move.

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Okay Snow? Really? What the heck?

The snow probably won’t stick but there have been big fluffy snowflakes for about the last 20 minutes.

It figures! I’ve already put away the Cold weather gear for the year.

I’m thinking that I’m going to use the suspend function on my Apple Watch today. The forecast looks like we might have rain or snow for the whole day. Even Jesse isn’t interested in being outside. 

He’s curled up next to me snoozing.

I’m really glad that I didn’t start getting the trim ready for painting.

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Rainy day blues

It’s a rainy day.

Last night there were a couple of warnings about mud slides and potential evacuation orders due to the Bridge fire back in September. 

On this side of the mountains I was far less concerned. As things are turning out, we’re not getting a ton of heavy rain, it has been more moderate, just continuous.

The dog has refused to go out.

I think that’s funny as heck because he loves the snow but a little rain is beyond the pale for him to deal with. 

Every single time I’ve asked if he wanted to go out he’s just laid down and looked at me like I was insane then gone back to sleep.

I suspect that he’s going to demand that we both go out for our usual walk. His thinking is probably, “If I have to get wet, the so do you!”

It wouldn’t be the first time he’s played that card.

I am happy that it is not freezing. If this storm lasts as long as it’s expected to there would be a ton of snow.

I’m sure that Mother Nature is saving the big snowfall for the end of February so we can have another frozen March & April. That happens every other year or so.

The solar panels should be nice and clean tomorrow when the sun comes out. I was about to hose them off this saves me the water. I’m calling it a win.

 

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Okay, Not how I planed to spend this week.

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, there are multiple fires burning in Southern California.

Tuesday afternoon I got an evacuation notice on my phone. Then, there was a helicopter flying overhead announcing mandatory evacuation. Then there was another evacuation notice on my phone, and finally there was the sheriffs department driving up & down the streets announcing evacuation on their loudspeakers.

Hmm, says I, they must want us to leave.

I suspected it was coming and I’d already planned to stage stuff in the event there was an evacuation. I didn’t get a chance to execute my cunning plan before the evacuation was upon me.

So I grabbed some stuff, put the dog in the car and away we went. 

By the time we left the house, it looked very much like somehow the neighborhood had been relocated to Mars on a very bad day.

Jesse was freaked out and would not settle down.

I was annoyed by that and of course the usual California driving skills or more properly lack thereof.

I made a brief stop, or what was supposed to be a brief stop at a storage locker where I unloaded a bunch of stuff in an attempt to give the dog more room to lie down & relax. This as it turns out was an error.

While I was able to offload, I wasn’t able to get back on the damn freeway. Either the exits were closed, or they were blocked by the aforementioned Excellent California Drivers. Many of whom wouldn’t allow a change of lanes. At least one of whom used the emergency lane to “get ahead” and forced me out of the lane so I was unable to get on the freeway safely. 

Mind you by this point we were 15 – 20 miles away from the evacuation zone and in no danger whatsoever. This was just normal California assholery. It is also the kind of behavior that begets freeway shootings.

I figured “Screw it” and stopped for gas. Then I found a whole string of entrance ramps blocked off forcing me to take surface streets parallel to the freeway until just before Pomona.

Once on the freeway it was a simple matter to get to Orange County and stay with some friends. It’s good to have great friends that will put you up in a pinch. It’s even better to have friends that will put you and your big ass dog up when they have a lovely pet free home and it is pet free for a reason.

My friends have gone above and beyond in this instance and I truly have no idea how to thank them.

At this point I know the firefighters are doing all they can do. I know that there’re no guarantees but I hate not knowing what is likely to happen. Is my house going to burn? Is it not? If it burns, then I have a clear direction. If it’s not going to burn, I’d really rather be home and not imposing on my friends like this.

In an attempt to minimize the mess and stuff that a dog invariably brings into your life, I had Jesse groomed today, while I was at it I had my car washed and my hair cut too. My hope with Jesse being groomed was that he’d shed a little less and wouldn’t be in any way offensive in terms of dog stink.

He’s been sleeping since we got back and I know I’m going to have to take him out on at least one, maybe two more walks tonight.

I don’t really think about it, but having a fenced in back yard is super nice. Their yard is not fenced in, so I’ve been walking Jesse on his leash a lot. Normally Jesse & I go for our morning walk, then I leave the sliders open so he comes and goes as he wishes the rest of the day.

If I move off the mountain, either because of the house burning down, or just because It’s time for me to move on, I will be looking for new digs that have a fenced in back yard after this experience, I’ve decided that is a must have.