Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Weather’

When Water Rises

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on October 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »

What’s happened to the Appalachian Mountains post Hurricane Helene is apocalyptic.

And we are no strangers to hurricanes. When you marry an Emergency Physician, you learn to live with contingencies. We would fill up the bathtub so we could flush our toilet in the Berkshires before a Nor’easter. We had a generator in our garage on the Jersey Shore.

But last week in Nashville, Bob was walking around the house muttering about emergency back-up plans, or the lack thereof. He needs to know that everything will fall seamlessly into place when all else fails… I mean he used to write disaster plans! This is why doctors seem so serene in the midst of chaos, they figure they have everything covered. We even have a mophie wireless charging brick just in case we lose power.

But last week we didn’t lose power, we only lost internet service for four days.

This is day FIVE since Helene roared her way up from Florida, leaving over 100 dead and 600 missing. We had dinner with Les and her husband Saturday night and she got us up to speed on Asheville. She and her husband David own a condo in the middle of town and she told me she spoke for less than a minute with one of her neighbors before they lost cell service. She was starting to pack her car when she heard the roads were gone and only emergency services were allowed in.

Roads in and out of Asheville have washed out. Cables are gone and cell towers toppled. They had a boil water alert before they lost water altogether. Power and internet service is down and food is running low. Every creek and river overflowed after being drenched the week before, then Helene dropped the amount of FIVE Septembers of rain. The hospital there, Mission (recently bought by HCA) was running aground before all this happened. Doctors and nurses are living on-site with the help of generators.

People in North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia have lost everything. It is unimaginable but not totally unexpected. Most people living in the Northeast don’t understand how a mountainous area can flood, but climate change has challenged that belief. The once every hundred year flood is happening every few years. I checked on the Facebook page of a widowed friend living in Haywood County, NC. Her daughter is a physician who works with the Groom, and she worked as a journalist for a newspaper in her younger years. The Bride thought we’d have a lot in common, and we do. I found a picture on her timeline of a coffee cup a friend posted for her with this caption:

“She’s hand grinding her own coffee beans and using a camp stove.”

I was relieved to know she’s alright. Of course she is, she roasts her own coffee beans on her front porch! If you would like to help people recover from this storm, all the usual sites are accepting donations – Red Cross, the Salvation Army and United Way. Also you can register online if you live nearby to help with food: “World Central Kitchen, which set up meal service Monday at Bear’s Smokehouse BBQ, welcomes volunteers who have registered online.” There is also: https://mercychefs.com/helene-response and https://www.heartswithhands.org/

In retrospect, losing Google Fiber for four days was nothing compared to Helene’s wrath. And please remember when you vote next month, one ex-president’s response to a disaster was to throw paper towels out to victims after a hurricane hit Puerto Rico. And vote accordingly. Wonder Woman painting by Ashley Longshore.

Screenshot

Read Full Post »

Snowflakes

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on January 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Good morning from beautiful, snow covered Nashville where the temperature is 17 degrees. I looked out at the picnic table in the low dawning light, expecting to see a “light dusting,” but to my surprise there’s at least 6 inches of the white stuff and it’s still squalling. Luckily, the schools were closed for Martin Luther King Day and I’m pretty sure every other business has closed as well.

I don’t want to brag, but this is where the lines are drawn between northeners and southeners. When our kids were little, they’d rush to put on the whole kit and kaboodle – thermal underwear and snow suits complete with scarves, mittens and pom pom hats! Let’s not forget the snow boots. They couldn’t wait to make maple snow and build snow caves with their friends in the Berkshire Mountains. OTOH, I don’t even think our Grands own a sled, or ice skates let alone snow boots, and I know for sure they have never seen this much snow.

Sometimes I wonder if I was just imagining walking through tightly packed snow tunnels on the streets of Massachusetts. Did we really get Nor’easters with a couple of feet of snow on a regular basis? That time Bob’s car flipped over into a snow bank on the way to his hospital in Northampton, was that real or just part of a narrative I’ve told myself so many times? The Bride was sitting in her highchair and I was feeding her oatmeal when Bob walked back into the house covered in snow. I didn’t hear a car coming up the driveway; hadn’t he just left for work?

Cognitive dissonance isn’t enough to describe such a feeling but I’ll bet it’s imprinted on us for life. It’s what some patients describe after a dose of ketamine for a procedure – like they are there…but not there. Like the time we heard that Hillary lost the 2016 election. We had to ‘suspend our disbelief’ for the next 4 years, we had to get comfortable with chaos, followed by a tornado and a pandemic. It was a lot to ask, and some of us did better than others.

I thought we’d be talking about Iowa today, but the snow has cocooned us and dampened the GOP. I thought we might look back at the legacy of MLK, Jr, but memorials have been cancelled. When I heard that the principal of an Iowa school had succumbed to his injuries from a school shooter, I was ashamed that I barely remembered the massacre. But I do remember the Covenant School shooting here in Nashville.

When I saw that our own TN Democratic representatives, the Justins, were sanctioned and silenced in the State House because they wanted to talk about gun reform, I was infuriated. Now, Republican-led members have changed the rules for public entry to the people’s house. Getting a ticket to sit in the balcony now, unless you are a lobbyist, is harder than getting a seat at a Taylor Swift concert. That is their scheme; the pleas of Covenant parents to protect their children be damned. Someone once said, “Cruelty is their point” and I’m starting to believe that maliciousness runs in their veins.

As a card carrying Democrat, I was proud to be called a “snowflake.” And I’m just as proud to call myself a Yankee. We know how to deal with a little snow, and we know how to start an avalanche.

Read Full Post »

Is Fun Done?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on December 25, 2023| Leave a Comment »

First of all, Merry Christmas to all who celebrate.

It’s rainy and warm here in Nashville and for a change, there will be no doctor from our family on duty in any ER or ICU! Our adult kiddos are traveling within and without the states this year so we’re all alone; we don’t even have grand dog duty. Our neighbors have taken pity on us, so we’ve had cookies and cakes dropped on our doorstep. I guess being Jewish in the South is a novel experience for many, but with Hanukkah behind us and no Chinese restaurant in sight, Bob and I plan to relax and enjoy our rainy day!

Maybe I’ll vacuum? I must confess we managed to buy a cord-free, lightweight Dyson on a cybersale Monday and it has changed my life for the better. It not only picks up everything, it shines a light on the floor or rug and displays what kind of dust and debris it’s catching on its handle! I mean, between the air purifier and the Dyson, what else do we need? I know it’s very trendy, and I hate being on trend, but I’m even dreaming about vacuuming.

What do you do for fun? If you had no cares, and nowhere to go, would you watch a football game? Would you kick your feet up and read a book, or would you strap on your sneakers and run on the treadmill? I’ve had to accommodate my changing body, but I can still mount our free Buy Nothing Facebook elliptical and do some gentle Pilates. An article in the Post caught my eye the other day, the writer posits we Americans no longer know how to have FUN! In other words, “It’s become emphatic, exhausting, scheduled, hyped, forced and performative.”

Consider what we’ve done to fun. Things that were long big fun now overwhelm, exhaust and annoy. The holiday season is an extended exercise in excess and loud, often sleazy sweaters. Instead of this being the most wonderful time of the year, we battle holiday fatigue, relentless beseeching for our money and, if Fox News is to be believed, a war on Christmas that is nearing its third decade.“

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/of-interest/2023/12/23/fun-is-dead/

And I get it. The stress of the happy season to feel happy can be depressing. Take the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Jimmy Stewart is so depressed (and drunk I might add) he’s ready to jump off a bridge until an angel recounts all the myriad ways he’s made a difference. Bob and I watched my favorite holiday movie “Love Actually” last night and all doesn’t end well in old London town. There is still infidelity and unrequited love via poster boards. And this year, in particular, even Bethlehem has cancelled Christmas because of the war.

A Biblical, age-old war between brothers, the Arabs and the Jews, both born of Abraham. His wife Sarah was too old to conceive and so Ishmael was born via her maidservant, Hagar/who/by/the/way/was/not/Jewish – the first surrogate mother in the Bible. Later, when Abraham was 100, he and Sarah had a son, Isaac. Guess which son inherits the fertile crescent? They are still working this out, because one brother does not want to share, sound familiar? From the Camp David Accords in 1978 to the Oslo Accords in 1993 only one side has refused a two state solution, the Palestinians.

If the Irish and the English worked things out, the Bosnians and the Serbs, and the North and the South for that matter, I’m left wondering why peace is so illusive in the Mideast. Who is benefitting from this war? The leaders of Hamas who sit comfortably in Qatar, reportedly billionaires who live luxuriously while their people suffer. The right-leaning Israeli leaders who have cemented their hold on Netanyahu’s government after October 7 surely. But money, power, oil and water are not the only answers in this multi-generational feud. Plus, why must an American president work out an accord? Where are the leaders in the Arab world, the kings and sheiks who pull the strings?

I didn’t mean to leave you with a sour note this morning. In fact, since I cannot control the Mideast and unless you happen to be a Secretary of State neither can you, it seems imperative that we do what we can to practice compassion – both for ourselves and others – as we head into a new year. May you do what makes you happy today and Merry Cleaning!

Read Full Post »

Atmospheric Rivers of Music

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on January 11, 2023| 3 Comments »

Before my first cup of coffee, Bob said, “Have you seen your texts?”

California is at risk of floating away from a series of heavy storms, so my first thought was, “Are the kids evacuating?” Most of the rain is in Northern California but you never know.

Bob assured me everything was alright, while I looked at him incredulously. After an early morning series of text messages with the Bride, he couldn’t wait for me to read the news. While scrolling through the New York Times it seems the Bride came upon a familiar face – her brother! Yes, the very one who lives above a canyon in LA! We had failed to tell her he’d been interviewed during the summer about his work, but in fairness he wasn’t sure when the article, or even IF the article would be published.

I always thought the Rocker’s face would be on the cover of Rolling Stone someday, but for an old-fashioned news reporter, landing in the Grey Lady is the epitome of greatness! I sipped my coffee as I read the essay about the latest trend in trailer music and my son’s specific contributions.

While we were in Malibu I knew something had changed. One day I heard the Rocker laughing with his sister while the Groom was looking at his phone. My adult children know that TikTok is a bridge too far for me to cross, so they did their best to explain what had happened with my son’s latest trailer for the new Black Panther: Wakanda Forever movie. Someone on TikTok connected the dots back to his company, Totem, and was giddy over the musical re-mix.

“The way it goes from No Woman No Cry into Alright and then how the music just goes into another gear at that 1:45 mark…,” another fan on Twitter said. And right before our eyes, Totem was blowing up on YouTube. I think that’s the right terminology.

When the Rocker was in high school, along with playing guitar in his band, he would always write his own music and play around with the oldies that our generation loved. His Fender Strat never left his hands. Since we had wonderful neighbors in the land between two rivers, the drum set stayed in our garage. Playing at the iconic Stone Pony in Asbury Park was just one highpoint of years and years of practice.

But to be honest, it wasn’t an easy trajectory. He left college to tour the world with The Parlor Mob; sleeping in vans and getting signed by one major record label only to be dropped and picked up by another. Some booking agents were better than others and of course they had to sell merchandise. He never complained. The accommodations improved, and the bar food was getting tastier as they worked their way up the ranks, but the entire music industry was changing around the boys in the band. Making a cohesive album of songs turned into 99 cent singles on your cell, or hearing your anthem play at an NHL arena.

He started off as a young boy listening to vinyl LPs in our living room, went straight into the teenage mixed cassette tape era crammed into his car’s windshield visor, and wound up with streaming music everywhere. Now he’s in the NYTimes! This is Eric Ducker’s intro:

“He’s played a crucial role in some of pop culture’s biggest recent moments. But few people outside of the space where the entertainment and marketing industries overlap know his name. As a composer, Rosen is at the forefront of the trailerization movement: He’s in demand for his ability to rework existing songs to maximize their impact in trailers for films and TV shows.He married vocals and motifs from Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” to a thunderous version of the “Stranger Things” theme in the lead-up to the second volume of the show’s fourth season. He intertwined the Nigerian singer Tems’s cover of “No Woman No Cry” with Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” in the teaser for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” symbolizing the meeting of the franchise’s future and its legacy.” 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/arts/music/trailer-music-trailerization.html

Granted Ducker’s essay included other trailer houses, but it led with Totem and a close-up of my son’s face. What I love, besides that punim, is how the Rocker took a song from the 80s, and introduced it to a new generation. Kate Bush, who recorded Running Up That Hill when the Rocker was a newborn, has now made over 2 Million dollars in royalties since its debut in Stranger Things. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2022/07/08/kate-bush-stranger-things-how-much-did-she-earn/

That’s a nice retirement package!

What I really really love about the Rocker is his humble heart. His wife Kiki, or his sister have to tell me when he’s received an award or is working with a famous director. He would never brag about his accomplishments and would always be the first to offer a friend a couch to sleep on. He’s even helped other East Coast artists adapt to the West Coast vibe. When he needed children to sing a lullaby, he turned to our little California cousins. And most importantly, the Rocker never stopped hugging me in public, even in Middle School.

While 90% of California is currently on flood watch due to atmospheric rivers of rain, we’ve been interviewing contractors about our HVAC system. It can barely keep up with the swing in Nashville temperatures. And I can barely keep up with technology. But the wind has always been at my son’s back.

Read Full Post »

Snow Days

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on January 10, 2022| Leave a Comment »

This week, Nashville finally succumbed to a real winter snowfall – over SIX inches! That’s like getting two feet of snow in the Berkshires, only there are not as many plows in the South. Also… maybe, there’s not enough salt in the South? So everything shut down for two days. Bob was walking around the house muttering, “I f-ing HATE the winter.” While I busied myself doing the usual – laundry, cooking comfort food, and painting.

I know, I know, I’m not the painter in the family. The Flapper, Aunt Kay and the Bride are the artistic ones. In high school, my daughter’s AP Art class was the highlight of her day. I’d never picked up a paintbrush because, why even try? Besides, I told myself I was painting a picture with words each time I sat down to write. But lately I’ve been feeling creative, and trying something new is good for your brain.

On the second snow day, we brushed the snow off our car, and found the main roads were mostly clear. There was simply NO traffic. According to Gmail, our new/old cottage had received a package, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t buried in the snow… or abducted by a porch pirate! Luckily our electrician was at the house and had brought the crystal chandelier inside. Tim is a man born and raised here, he loves the snow, and his Jeep. We discussed the placement of new canh lights and then headed straight to the Bride’s house.

The Groom was working from home, and my daughter was practicing yoga and baking bread! Where were the children? The house was eerily quiet. Turns out the Love Bug was sledding with friends, then suddenly the Pumpkin jumped into the room. We sat down for a heart to heart.

Me: Which do you like better, Zoom school or real school?

Pumpkin: Real school, of course.

Me: Is there anything you like about Zoom school?

Pumpkin: I can mute myself!

Ah yes, I bet we would all like to mute ourselves, or someone else from time to time. I’d like to mute my inner critic, the one who wants to know why I think I should be painting when the world is falling apart. The Ukraine is a powder keg, a cliff falls on tourists in boats in Brazil, and the Omicron variant has teamed up with Delta to create the DELTACRON in Cyprus. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/08/cyprus-reportedly-discovers-a-covid-variant-that-combines-omicron-and-delta.html

Today a petulant, unvaccinated tennis star is allowed to enter Australia.

Australia – the land where anyone who comes of age can vote; they don’t even have to register.… and if they choose NOT to vote, they must pay a fine.

But hey, the TN Titans are in the playoffs, and luckily the Grands’ school has resumed indoors for now. We should have sheetrock going up today, and thanks to a rainy weekend, the snow has disappeared. Anyone else counting their blessings today?

The Bride in the Berkshires

Read Full Post »

High Winds

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on March 2, 2018| Leave a Comment »

We all know that March can come in like a lion roaring, but I didn’t expect government buildings to close in DC and siding to get ripped off of houses in Cville. This morning we went to a preschool Purim celebration in Nashville, and Mother Nature may have turned colder here, but our wind blew in so many super heroes and princess/queens I fell in love with Judaism all over again!

When our kids were little, the President of the Brotherhood In our Berkshire’s temple dressed up as “Super Jew.” Bob once dressed as an Irish fairy because the date happened to coincide with St Patrick’s Day – a rare but exciting alignment of the stars. Purim is like Jewish Halloween and Feminist Easter rolled into one. Instead of the male protagonist dying and coming back to life, Queen Esther (who was secretly Jewish – kinda like Moses) saves her people from complete annihilation!

Purim is my kind of festival. It’s loud and glitzy and kids are all invited to the festivities. They blew up a little bouncy house in the Temple today! There’s no long wait for chicken soup, instead they had specially made cookies called hamentaschen. And just to top it all off, our female Rabbi and Cantor both dressed up as Wonder Woman!

Here are some Purim observances:

Reading of the Megillah (book of Esther), which recounts the story of the Purim miracle.

Sending gifts of two kinds of food (of course) to at least one person.

A festive Purim feast, which often includes wine or other intoxicating beverages.

Maybe I could have a margarita with lunch today? I was reading up on the news, and noticed the BBC dove into the special visa our First Lady Melania obtained to blow ashore in these United States. Not a bad idea for a story, considering Mr T is preparing to deport Dreamers and even spouses of military personnel.

She landed here from Slovenia on a tourist visa in ’96, then a string of working visas until she met Mr T 2 years later at a party. That’s when she applied for a very special green card.

It’s called “The Einstein Visa” or EB-1

To obtain an EB-1 for extraordinary ability, an immigrant has to provide evidence of a major award or meet three of 10 criteria proving excellence in their field. The criteria include coverage of the applicant in major publications, original and significant contributions to a field, and work displayed at artistic exhibitions.

At the time, all Melania was known for was, “… she appeared on the cover of British GQ on a fur rug in Mr Trump’s private jet, and in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated in the US. She was not a top international model.” It’s not quite like being being published in a major journal or something.

Well.  Well.  Well. All right, so she didn’t win a Nobel Prize, but she did win Mr T’s heart obviously, if you believe he even has one of those organs. And I’ll bet he wrote her glowing testimonials as a reference. Hey maybe she was destined to be America’s next Top Model? The next Heidi Klum?!

I just heard a tractor trailer was blown over by 100 MPH winds on the Tappan Zee Bridge. I hope the people who bought our mountain home put some bricks on the hot tub! Or we may have to send in the Super Hero L’il Pumpkin!  IMG_2359

Read Full Post »

Dense Fog Advisory

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on May 31, 2016| 2 Comments »

Fog Happens. That was the bumper sticker I loved on Martha’s Vineyard. To this day I have remained a bumper-sticker-free driver, although I do appreciate a good joke on a taxi. There is one company in town that adorns its taxis with snippets of wisdom, like this one: “Only dead fish go with the flow.” And you know that silver fish you sometimes see on a car that means the driver is a Christian? Well a friend gave me that fish with the word “Gefilte” inside; it stands above my desk keeping guard. My car shall remain fish-free!

This morning it’s hard to see your fingers in front of your face. Birds are grounded and the red tail hawks are not circling the backyard looking for vermin. I wonder if planes will be grounded too, and that has me worried since we are supposed to fly out of here today for our 37th Wedding Anniversary river cruise up the Danube. Fingers crossed the fog lifts and s&*t doesn’t happen!

For a person who doesn’t like to travel, I seem to be doing a lot of it. We are supposed to have WiFi on the boat so hopefully I will continue to blog.

I will be happy to take a hiatus from CNN. The fog of war continues as our brave armed forces “assist” the Iraqi forces in taking back Falluja. Trump continues to spout nonsense to Bikers in DC, many were Vets yesterday showing respect for the fallen as they cruised the monuments.

And don’t get me started on the gorilla and the toddler. Bob says they could have tranquilized the big guy, but I said he may have collapsed on the baby…we met a large animal Vet the other day at Starbucks. Pat is married to our small animal Vet. He tends to cows and horses all over the Shenandoah Valley and he told us they are “Wild” animals and cannot be trusted. That made me feel better, sort of. Still I turn away from the video. So, as much as I’d like to be all Dame Jane Goodall about gorillas, I’m sure the zoo did the right thing. Right?

Time for another cup of coffee, to clear my foggy brain, and make sense of the final packing checklist. To edit out the useless, and stick with the essentials. We always pack light, one carry-on each for any trip, of any length, anywhere. Bon Voyage!  IMG_4484

 

 

Read Full Post »

It Must Be Raindrops

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on May 10, 2016| 2 Comments »

Once, when I was writing for the Berkshire Eagle, a headline went something like this: “Sunshine for Six Days Straight!” True. Because of the topography, similar in some ways to Seattle, Pittsfield, MA was overcast and grey much of the time. That is, when it wasn’t covered in snow. Spring was called “Mud Season,” and summer was fleeting. I’m sure Climate Change has affected New England, and maybe it’s warmer and sunnier up there, but I’m pretty much done with this “Omega” thing that has Central VA stuck in endless overcast, cold, rainy days.

“Scattered Showers for Two Weeks Straight!”

When my sister Kay, and niece Karen came to visit, after my Nashville trip, the mountains did a disappearing act. I swore up and down they really were there, under that blanket of clouds, and I know they believed me. And all the old-timers are telling me not to despair, cause we need the rain, we’ll be happy in August when it’s triple digits…And I don’t need to wear a sun hat…another silver lining for this ex-waterfront counselor who gets a basal cell carcinoma scraped off her nose every few years.

Yes, this is the down-side to having a ski-jump nose.

Still, I’m getting Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). And I’m sorry to be a downer folks, but there is good reason: 1) I was alone for Mother’s Day – OK that’s not unusual, but it still hurts; 2) Two 90 year old family members were just hospitalized – they’ve been released but…; 3) Trump seems to have won the nomination; 4) The Love Bug has a cavity.

Oh and let’s discuss Prince for a moment. We advertise for laxatives on TV when our opioids make us constipated?! Hello! Prescription pain addiction is a huge problem that started awhile ago – remember Elvis? Let’s drag out all the experts, until the next celebrity succumbs, and talk about heroin addiction on the campaign trail ad infinitum. Until we stop waging a WAR on drugs, and treat this as I’ve said before as a Health Policy issue, we are the real enablers of this epidemic.

I know this does not seem like the end of the world list, and since I don’t like to use the term “First World Problems,” I won’t! But the rain has granted me more time to research the Flapper for my book. Where were the restrooms located in speakeasies? What was the alcoholic content of beer sold in drugstores? What kind of lighter was used to ignite cigarettes?! And since this is historical fiction I know I can just “make stuff up,” but I’d like to have a believable context to work around.

Maybe today I’ll throw on an anorak and head to the garden store for some flowers. The time to plant was last weekend, and I’ve been dragging my feet, since planting in a slow, steady rain isn’t my thing, but if I can’t actually see the mountains I might as well look out on some pretty pots. Maybe we should call Spring in the South “SAD Season?”

Here are two sisters, with identical noses, dodging raindrops! Kay was like another Mother to me, it’s like I had three moms growing up. Forgive me, it’s my Blue Period. And thanks to Karen Bisset for the picture – her company is fabulous btw! http://www.fromthecradle.biz/about-us.html13151762_788085601326885_8141167915272270988_n 2

Read Full Post »

A Mighty Wind

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Spring brings daffodils, now my lilacs are beginning to bud. And along with showers, we can anticipate windy conditions. What we didn’t expect was downed power lines for Great Grandpa Hudson’s 90th birthday party. The restaurant luckily had a back-up generator for lights and stoves, while the crush of 80 people supplied the body heat we needed as temperatures outside dropped.

The wind followed us south; power lines were down on one side of Cville. Bob had to batten down the hatches of his hot tub and lock the screen porch door. I retrieved some deck furniture from the woods. We sit facing the Blue Ridge, so the the western wind can be relentless. This morning, not only can I hear the wind roaring like a train in a valley, freezing temperatures have returned.

The wind is a precursor to change. It sweeps everything clean in its path. It whips dirt into our eyes, and makes us catch our breath. We lean into it in order to stay standing, our sense of balance is in jeopardy. And since the release of leaked Panama Papers, a treasure trove of information about secret hiding places for the money of the world’s most elite, many king-pins may actually tumble and fall.

The Panama Papers comprise the biggest leak in history, involving 11.5 million documents from Panama-based Mossack Fonseca, the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm. The documents implicate a dozen current or former heads of state, as well as scores of other politicians, celebrities and businesspeople, in owning offshore accounts that could help them conceal their wealth or avoid taxes.      http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-panama-papers-censorship-20160405-story.html

At first I thought, who cares? We all know how the uber-rich avoid taxes with high-priced lawyers and accounts in Grand Cayman. But the reaction of China is telling. Their department of propaganda, oops excuse me “information,” immediately released a bulletin telling all new media to stand down. Do not report on the Panama Papers, or else. “Find and delete reprinted reports on the Panama Papers,” according to a circular leaked on Tuesday by the California-based news website China Digital Times. “Do not follow up on related content, no exceptions. If material from foreign media attacking China is found on any website, it will be dealt with severely.”

So the supreme leader of China has been implicated in hoarding wealth, along with his brother. Only China, teetering on the brink of democracy, could so succinctly censor information. Right?

Then I heard about the DC Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey operated Pamela Martin and Associates, an escort agency in Washington, DC, remember her, she supposedly killed herself a few years ago. But her lawyer, Montgomery Blair Sibley, is now threatening to open his Pandora’s Box of names and phone numbers, implicating so he says, some of our presidential candidates in a scandal. He actually started a self-funding site since he’s been disbarred after his days in the spotlight.

The Madam’s records had been sealed by our courts, but Sibley thinks we’d like to see them…which raises the question – exactly what is censorship? Oh the humanity! http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/04/04/_d_c_madam_lawyer_goes_to_supreme_court_to_release_escort_phone_records.html

Sibley must go through the courts to have the gag order surrounding the D.C. madam’s phone records lifted if he wants to release the information legally. Palfrey herself is deceased, and therefore cannot weigh in on the controversy. Just two weeks after being convicted on a plethora of charges related to her escort service, the D.C. madam was found dead in her mother’s shed, hanging with a rope around her neck. The cause of death was officially ruled a suicide, but there was speculation by many, including North Star Report, that the D.C. madam was killed because she knew too much about too many high-ranking clients.

Sounds like an episode of House of Cards! I could care less who was in the Madam’s little black book. But I suspect if the names are released, the American public will care quite a bit. The mighty wind that tossed a world-famous blond comb-over into the GOP, may sweep out the pompous, holier-than-thou candidates.

Let’s hear it for those investigative reporters who keep plugging, who hang on tight in a storm. They brought the Catholic Church to its knees in Boston, they delivered a world-wide laundry scheme to us via a Panama law firm, and now who knows? They just may save our republic. Here is Ms Bean, hiding from the sun, before the winds came.

IMG_4166

 

Read Full Post »

When Disaster Strikes

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on December 29, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Have you or anyone you know lived through a natural disaster? The closest I came was the “once in a hundred year flood” that happened right after we moved into our mid-century modern ranch on a tributary of the Shrewsbury River in NJ.

Except that we luckily had flood insurance, friends who took care of our kids until we were able to fly back from a medical conference, and only lost a car and an HVAC system. The Corgis were stashed in the laundry room, which was thankfully above the water line. We had the resources to recover, and we were lucky.

But last week Bob spoke with the Bride and Groom as a tornado swept through Nashville. They had bundled up the kids and the dog and were hunkering down in their basement. Bob can plug into aviation weather tracking and see the path of the storm on his laptop. It was right above downtown Nashville. As sirens blared, my daughter led her family through a pretty complete soundtrack of the Love Bug’s life.

And when it was all over, I saw the pictures of the devastation that same storm system delivered to a small, little known part of the world. It’s a landscape with majestic magnolia trees and more historic, antebellum homes per square acre than any other place in the Deep South. Holly Springs, MS is where my sister-in-law grew up and where my brother Mike died. And it was the epicenter for that tornado.

Now I never ask you for anything. Week after week I say my peace about family, or politics, or “whatever is on my mind” as Bob likes to say. But that tornado wiped out the girlhood home, a farm belonging to a friend of my brother’s family in Holly Springs. Shelby is a beautiful soul. She was so close to my family at Walter Place, that she helped care for my brother when he became seriously ill. When I first met her, I thought she was an angel in disguise. She wants to become a nurse, and is currently working as a vet tech. Her parents are the salt of the earth, who were left homeless the day before Christmas Eve.

So if you feel so inclined to give a little something to those in need before January First, a friend of Shelby’s family has started a Go Fund Me account, “Kivelle Family Tornado Relief Fund” https://www.gofundme.com/u3g6xfw4

Her parents didn’t have any luck in the face of that tornado. Their MS farm was erased from the earth. But her Dad was a Union worker, as many small farmers need to have two jobs, and his Union buddies have started this fund to help them rebuild and recover. I like to know where my money goes for a good cause, and this one is about as good as it gets.

I love you Shelby, and thank God your family members are safe.   947035_10208598182494010_6736234418063270556_n

 

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »