Another bitch rant about the heat...

No, seriously, this heat is all that's on my mind right now so that's what I'm writing about. Today we cancelled "Bingo" for our clients due to the heat. What kind of crazy heat does there have to be in order for "Bingo" to be cancelled!? This kind of crazy heat, that's what. The kind that sucks out your will to live in just minutes. We told everyone to stay home, drink water and stay cool. Of course, some of them didn't listen and those that didn't were here screaming at us for something or other. Normally, the screamers are few and far between but today, what with everyone's will to live sucked out of them, they were rampant.

It is too damn hot here today.

It's too hot to even go to the beach.

It's too hot for clothes (though they appreciate it when you keep those on at work).

It's too hot for chit chat. That just makes my boiled brain hurt.

It's too hot to concentrate on anything. People are walking around the office like zombies.

It's too hot to get up and refill my water bottle. But I will because I need the water.

It's too hot to eat.

It's too hot for shoes. Flip flops at work? Hells yeah! I dare someone to call me on it...I just dare them! (insert stern mean mug photo here)

It's too hot to drive. Have I mentioned my AC in my car doesn't work? I drove Alex home from work so he didn't have to walk and it was like driving him home in a microwave. Without the added benefit of popcorn.

It's too hot to listen to music. My ear buds make my head sweat.

I want to be somewhere cold having one of these.



I love summer. It's my favorite time of year, next to Christmas, but please, for the love of all that's holy, please make this heat wave stop.

That precarious place between autumn and winter...

I can always tell when winter is around the corner. It all starts with the sunrise and my leaving for work somehow timing exactly for a couple of weeks. Those are the most beautiful mornings where the sun peeks it's fiery head over the horizon of Lake Michigan. It makes me almost want to be up and out of the house that early.

But then it happens...

The morning comes when I am up and out before the sunrise and the day hasn't yawned it's first hello. Everything is dark and quiet. Sleepy buses are making their way, riderless, through town and the I'm nearly blinded by the garish lights of the local Gas 'n Go. The wind is a wee bit colder and the great lake is pitch dark midnight blue. Today there were clouds but on some days there will be the reflection of the waning moon. It's a sure sign that the dark season, winter, is coming.

I'm not like most of the people I know who lament summer's passing. I love summer, don't get me wrong! But I also find an immense amount of beauty in a Wisconsin winter. Yes, it's cold. Burning, hurting cold sometimes. But the crisp clean snow and fresh air are wonderful. The roar of the winter lake against the rocky shore is comforting. The glisten of new snow on over laden trees is so beautiful sometimes it doesn't look real! I love winter. Almost as much as summer.

Strange morning sky...

This morning as I got to work this is what the sky looked like to the west. There was the moon, still full and bright, eerie shadows being cast by the sun coming up in the east and then this dark bank of clouds that looked more like a mountain range and clearly was something out of a Stephen King novel! Very strange!!

So far spring stinks!

My friend Gary, who lives in LA, was just complaining because it's been 95 degrees there for the past couple of years. I just read Esther's blog on the hot season in Africa. Another friend of mine told me she had been out walking in the warm spring air and sunshine. I'm starting to feel slighted here. It's been in the 30's and rainy here for three days! Enough already!! Grey, cold, rainy, blah! I'm starting to get snippy so watch out.

On a lighter note - I was talking to my sister tonight. She calls me almost every night just to talk. She lives right downstairs and I see her everyday but she still calls, just to talk. Some days I'm impatient and don't really feel like talking but tonight I just really started to appreciate the solid, usual, predictable conversation that we tend to have. She tells me what she's cooked for dinner, how she's feeling and about some new recipe she's found. It's mundane but it's also expected and, tonight, I just appreciated the fact that I can always rely on these little stressless chats about absolutely nothing that usually end with one of us yawning and deciding to end the call. There is some deep appreciation for that. I think that if I didn't have it, I would miss it terribly!

It's nice to have those daily things that you can always count on to ground you. For me it's my sister's calls and my cats and, most importantly, talking to Alexander every single day. These are the real things in my life. Not work, not drama, not made up put upon stress - but real, honest, simple truths that I rely on.

Driving an igloo to work....

We got some snow here last night and it's still snowing. Frankly, I'm glad to see it though I have to admit getting out while it's still dark and scraping the windshield is not high on my list of fun things to do. Actually today I had to scrape the entire car. The snow started last night as freezing rain which makes for a nice force field of icy stealth to clean off the car the next day. I tend to leave some on the non-glass parts of the car so I look like a 2001 Dodge Igloo driving down the road in the morning. I figure sooner or later the sun will come out and Mother Nature can clear off the rest.

Living in Wisconsin, you'd think we would all be used to this kind of weather. But the weather is complaint Numero Uno around here at all times. People either complains it's too hot or too cold or too wet or too dry. Not a day goes by when someone doesn't mention it. The phrase "Cold enough for ya?" is a common greeting as is "You ask for this snow?" as if someone has to be to blame. I tend to like weather so living here isn't a problem for me. I love that the seasons change so drastically here. It can be 100 degrees in the summer with 98% humidity or it can get to 15 degrees in the winter with a 20 below wind chill factor. There's something about all that change that keeps it interesting. I get a lot of groans from people when I say things like "Isn't the snow great!?" But it is great. It's beautiful. I can't wait until we have enough to go outside and make a big snowman!

So, how's the weather?

It's been a wild weekend here weather wise. Since Friday we have had a series of tornado warnings, flash flood watches and some of the most amazing lightening I've ever seen. I haven't had much of a chance to be on the computer because, frankly, it just didn't seem to be a very safe place to be this weekend! Also, I've been getting things together for Alex's visit here. He arrives on Tuesday and I'm so excited! I've managed to take most of the time he'll be here off of work so we'll have loads of time to be out and about and together. As excited as I am, I also know the time will go too quickly and he'll have to leave again. Getting us both located in the same place at the same time permanently is Job One from this point on. It's been amazing that we've been able to maintain this long distance relationship as solidly as we have but I think we're both getting very tired of only hearing one another on the phone or seeing each other on a webcam. It's good that these things are there but it's no kind of way to be in a committed relationship that you want to go forward and make plans.

But enough of that...

In two days, he's here! And right now, that's all that matters.

Strange, dangerous January weather!

Yesterday I came home from work, a little tired, and decided to take a short nap. It was unusually warm all day - in the 60's - which is unheard of in Wisconsin in January. I had just fallen asleep when the tornado warning siren went off outside waking me up. I looked out my bedroom window and there was nothing there. No wind, no rain, nothing. It was still a lovely afternoon out there. I laid back down and the siren went off again. This time I went out the living room and checked out the front window - again, nothing happening. So, I thought the siren must just be broken or something. I sat down and turned on the TV. Lo and behold, all around me, tornado's were touching down in Kenosha.



Out west of I-94 a tornado that registered as an F4 touched down in the village of Wheatland taking out entire neighborhoods. Meanwhile, another tornado, an F2 was ravaging the north side of Kenosha. It hopped from house to house, taking out one here or there and leaving others standing. My sister Patsy lives in a house that was right in it's path. She literally watched the funnel leap from across her street, up and over her home and then down again on the next block. Her home was untouched. Two blocks down, two homes were devastated. Yet, at my house, nothing. Now Kenosha is not that big. The city of Kenosha is about 100,000 people and it's pretty compact. You can drive from one end of town to the other in less than 15 minutes. The irregularity of the path of these storms was unreal. They literally picked which homes they wanted and danced around the rest.



The damage is enormous but quite luckily there were no serious injuries and no casualties. The most serious injury was one man who broke his arm. There were some incredible stories - the 14 year old girl who just got home from school, answered the phone to hear her mother say "Get in the basement." and she ran for it. She just got into the basement and the entire house was gone. The same happened to another guy who just came home from work, ran in his house, grabbed his wife and baby and got into the basement just as their house was destroyed. Pretty remarkable that no one was killed.

Today it was in the 40's. Right now the temp is dropping rapidly and we are supposed to get snow showers tonight. So weird.

Getting back...

So, I went back to work today and I have to say that I was sort of on the fence about wanting to go and then not wanting to go. It wasn't too painful though I did have at least a foot and half tall pile of mail sitting on my desk. Turned out most of it wasn't for me. I don't know why but the person who sorts all of the mail will give me anything that says "case management" on it without looking at who the mail is actually for. So I spent some time this morning resorting mail and getting it to the appropriate people.

The weather here is weird! It was in the 60's today. Then when I got home, I was trying to take a little nap and found myself getting rather annoyed that the tornado warning siren kept going off. I was annoyed because it wasn't so much as drizzling outside and there was no wind at all. I finally got up and turned on the local news. Turns out that tornadoes were touching down all around me but right in the exact spot I was - nothing! My sister's neighborhood got hit pretty badly. She was lucky and had no damage but there were two homes down the street from her that were leveled and then just a few blocks away an entire street was gone. It was a selective tornado and for whatever reason, thank god, it didn't select her.

All of this kind of put into perspective all of the self induced sadness I have been putting on myself. Truth is, though things are not exactly where I would want them to be in my life right now, they are pretty damn good and there are people dealing with more immediate anguish that me. I'll have to keep that in mind. Helps keep me level headed about life.