Lessons From The Storm Part I

The word "freak", when preceding any other word, is almost never a good thing.  Neither is the word "unprecedented" a good thing when it comes to weather.

On October 29th, 2011, the word "freak" preceded the words "winter storm".  We've had snow in October before, even measurable snow and especially here in the northwestern hills of Connecticut.  Not at all unprecedented.  What was unprecedented was the sheer amount of very wet, very heavy snow accompanied by freakishly high winds.  There's that other word again.  Freak.

I was working at the Thrift Store on this Saturday before Halloween when the snow started falling.  Unlike most snow storms, this one started off fast and furious - no gentle dusting of flakes as a warning; rather, miniature snowballs falling so quickly as to obscure visibility and coat the ground within a quarter hour.  Although I have a four-wheel drive Subaru, and the road home is mostly a straight shot down a well-maintained major route, the snow was supposed to start off as a rain storm around noon and not switch over to snow until sunset or so; the fact that it was coming down like gangbusters at 11:30 a.m. led me to believe this was going to be one for the record books.  I closed down at noon, headed over to the small grocery store just behind the thrift store for coffee - and joined what looked like the entire town of Woodbury, Connecticut (population 5,118) who were also shopping for their last-minute supplies.

I'm a pragmatist and in most ways, a realist.  I know, intellectually, that the old "Blizzard of '88" scenario, with transportation halted for weeks and snowbound families starving to death, can't happen in this day and age.  At worst, we lose power and have to shelter at a local school for heat and running water.  Most of us have enough non-perishable food in our cabinets to last substantially longer than three days.  I know this; I'm sure most others do as well.  So what drives us to purchase all the milk, bread, strawberry Pop-Tarts and D-cell batteries before a storm?  Some latent squirreling instinct, perhaps?

45 minutes later, with my large Maxwell House coffee canister (and fresh strawberries, local maple syrup, and a few other essential items in hand), I regained the safety of my vehicle and headed home to enjoy the snow and silence of a pre-winter winter's day. I managed to make two pans of lasagna.  I turned on the Christmas lights on the house that we didn't get around to removing last season, and called it good.

October 29, 2011  4:30 p.m.

The snow continued to pelt down throughout the afternoon, and in the early evening hours, the wind started picking up.  By nightfall, ominous cracking sounds added a sinister low accompaniment to the soprano shrieks of the wind and the mid-toned splattering of slushy, wind-driven snow bombarding the windows.  Occasionally, a solid thump was heard and felt, and the lights flickered and came back on several times.  And then flickered after a close-by "BOOM" and stayed off.  It was 6:01 p.m.

That's Great, It Starts With An Earthquake....

August 23, 2011 - the day after our 19th Wedding Anniversary - an earthquake of 5.8 magnitude hit the east coast at 1:51 p.m., centered in Virginia.  To be honest, I didn't feel it - we were in the car coming home from the thrift store at the time.  I had a premonition about it, though, which I promptly dismissed as one of those fleeting "in one ear, out the other" thoughts.  I should have paid attention.

The next day, the media started making noise about a Hurricane Irene,  which looked to be making a path up the east coast, with a bee-line for New York and New England.  This warning I did not dismiss; we were overdue for a hit and if I had had any doubts, the sky on the morning of August 27th was a brilliant illustration of "red sky at morning; sailor take warning".

We battened down our hatches, purchased the requisite milk and bread, threw in some ice and beer for good measure, and hunkered down.  Being a household with regular loss of electricity, we are somewhat better prepared than our less rural neighbors, with lanterns, oil lamps, flashlights, camp stoves and the MUCH coveted "D" cell batteries.

A wedding had been planned for Saturday night at the Bellamy-Ferriday House, which I had volunteered to work, leading guests on a house tour during cocktail hour.  Friday saw the arrival of three massive tents - one for the wedding, one for the dinner and one for the dance floor and band.  The bridal party was busy shuttling boxes of booze to the barn for storage and the caterer arrived with the tablecloths, dinnerware and champagne flutes.

Saturday was my day to volunteer at the Red Barn Thrift store; Steve made a wonderful "Hurricane Blow Out Sale" sale sign to display, and I set up a special "Hurricane Helpers" shelf at the store, with every candle, candle holder and oil lamp we owned.  We nearly sold out of candles.

The rain was fitful all day long, coming in violent downbursts then tapering off and repeating.  The parking lot of LaBonne's grocery store was packed consistently throughout the morning and afternoon but people were good-natured and many were excited about the impending storm.  Around 2:00 p.m., I got a call from my supervisor at Bellamy-Ferriday, informing me that the bride had thought the better of it and was moving her ceremonies to a local hotel.  I'm sure the fact the wooden dance floor was under a foot of water might have helped sway her decision!

FaceBook was all aTwitter with emotions ranging from way too blasé to end times prophecy spouters. As Saturday evening wore on, the rain began in earnest and the winds picked up slightly.  As midnight approached, I decided to get a little bit of shut-eye and packed it in.

The kitties, of course, remained complacent throughout the ordeal.

Morning came too quickly; dawn came not at all as sheets of rain obscured the visibility and the wind was waxing fierce, causing a steady thudding of dead branches parting company with the oak trees.  The lights flickered and failed and came back on regularly, causing flashing time clocks all over the house.  Every time we lost power momentarily, our umbilical cord to the world failed, and rebooted, and then failed again.  The worst of the storm was roughly from sunrise until noon; six hours of pounding rain and whipping winds and fear for the oak trees in the yard.

Around 2:00, neighbors started venturing out to survey the damage in the 'hood.  Surprisingly light, all things considered, with branches and leaves littering the yards and roads but no trees down in our immediate area.  Ellen and I decided that we should venture out for a more thorough inspection, and we packed Michael, Mary-Grace and goldfish in her Explorer and took a spin around the Lake Winnemaug Beach, Logue Farms, Route 6 in Woodbury, up through Middlebury and the other side of our lake in Watertown, and home again.

Post hurricane grazing - the bulls are fine!

Tree snapped off about 10' up and taking down the power lines on Hamilton Avenue.

Traveling companion, Miss Mary Grace.  You can NOT resist the cuteness, trust me!

All in all, while we in our little corner of Watertown escaped virtually unscathed, the surrounding communities and counties were not as fortunate.  Bethlehem, Woodbury and Middlebury suffered a total loss of electricity.  New London county at nearly 100% outage for all their towns.  Fairfield County was hit hard, and my old home town of Fairfield lost several beach houses and flooded up Reef Road all the way up to the Transfer Station, a good 1/2 mile inland.  As the storm surged, every road south of Old Field Road in the beach area was evacuated.  Rhode Island and the Cape didn't bear the brunt but Vermont and upstate New York were hammered, as evidenced by heartbreaking YouTube videos of historic bridges being swept away by raging rivers.

As I write this three days after the storm, school has been canceled yet again for Watertown, and in Bethlehem and Woodbury, they've delayed the start of school until after Labor Day - just like the 'good old days'.  There are still over 400,000 households without power in our state, and over 2 million in New England.

And Hurricane Katia is making her way toward the Bahamas.

The Inevitable Evolution of the Curmudgeon

The word "curmudgeon" brings to mind - at least, to MY mind - the stereotypical New England swamp Yankee...see below:

These were the dudes who would chase you off their property with a shotgun, if they had one, or a mangy old mutt if they didn't.  Raised fists and threats of bodily harm were common, as were the swear words.  Should you have the extreme bad luck to lose your kickball over their fence, you either kissed it goodbye or drew straws to see who would attempt to retrieve it.  The curmudgeon came in both sexes, of course - it was both frightening and entertaining to be threatened with death from a little old lady spouting epithets in Italian or Czechoslovakian or French.

Every neighborhood had one, or two, or seven, so there was no dearth of curmudgeonliness in Fairfield, and we knew precisely which houses to beware of and avoid.  We thought they were a million years old; they likely ranged in age from 50s to their 90s (Old Man Kratky lived to 99!) and as I am now looking the big 5-0 right in the eye, come January, I have gained a certain sympathy for and appreciation of curmudgeons.  I found this whilst looking for a proper definition:

 "A curmudgeon's reputation for malevolence is undeserved. They're neither warped nor evil at heart. They don't hate mankind, just mankind's absurdities. They're just as sensitive and soft-hearted as the next guy, but they hide their vulnerability beneath a crust of misanthropy. They ease the pain by turning hurt into humor.  . . . . .   They attack maudlinism because it devalues genuine sentiment.   . . . . .   Nature, having failed to equip them with a servicable denial mechanism, has endowed them with astute perception and sly wit.
      Curmudgeons are mockers and debunkers whose bitterness is a symptom rather than a disease. They can't compromise their standards and can't manage the suspension of disbelief necessary for feigned cheerfulness. Their awareness is a curse.
      Perhaps curmudgeons have gotten a bad rap in the same way that the messenger is blamed for the message: They have the temerity to comment on the human condition without apology. They not only refuse to applaud mediocrity, they howl it down with morose glee. Their versions of the truth unsettle us, and we hold it against them, even though they soften it with humor."

- JON WINOKUR

OK, they don't always "soften it with humor" - few in my experience did, at any rate.  But the more I see of the human condition, the more curmudgeonly I am becoming myself.  A prime example of a current curmudgeon would be the great comedian and social commentarist (that's my word) Jon Stewart.  I guess, if you subscribe to their hate-filled venom, Ann Coulter/Bill O'Reilly/Rush Limbaugh would fall under the same category.  Personally, I think they're all idiots but that's just me.  And a couple million other people whose heads are screwed on straight.

So when we curse that distracted driver whose actions are threatening life and limb, or ridicule the Tea Party candidates' claims of 'returning America to its roots', or repost the article in the New York Times which provides confirmation of what we've suspected to be true all along, we are honoring and channelling our inner curmudgeons.

More curmudgeonliness, please!

"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!"

High School.  September 1976.  I vividly remember sitting in the auditorium at Roger Ludlowe high school, under the bright lights, surrounded by the rest of the 500+ member freshman class, wondering what the hell I was doing there.  A shock to the system - from around 30 well-known classmates, to this swarming, writhing mass of adolescent humanity, over 500 strong,  that represented the ass-end of the baby boomer generation.  From the cloistered, sheltered halls of Catholic school to this sprawling, confusing, three story institution.  I had never operated nor used a locker, a cafeteria or needed to change clothes for gym class.  I had never needed to find different classrooms for each subject, carry my books with me or figure out how to get to room 310 from home room 123.  I had never felt so much the 'fish out of water'.

"What I Am To Be, I Am Now Becoming."

That was emblazoned in two foot high letters on a banner at the entrance to the school's main office.  I'm not sure if that was a threat or a cheery promise, as if you were being sent to the Principal's office, you were in BIG trouble, bucko!  The school was divided into three 'houses':  Webster House, Silliman House and Haynes House.  My house was Webster and was in the newest wing of the building; the basement hallways had bright yellow lockers but the interior position of the odd numbered rooms resulted in no windows, which in turn resulted in classrooms that were a bit gloomy.

Mrs. Catherine ("Call Me Ma") Dillingham was my homeroom teacher.  She was one of those no-nonsense teachers but she had a great sense of humor; you could joke with her so long as you respected her authority, which we all did.  I was lumped with all the other "end of the alphabet" kids; with surnames beginning from "S" to "Z", we were the kids who were used to being called last in attendance checks, lining up last in those alphabetical order line-ups, and generally getting the shaft in anything done alphabetically.

Mr. Riley's English class was a bad fit for me, as I skewed the grading curve.  Had I had the proper guidance, I would have likely been placed in an honors class, but lacking same, I opted for what I considered the "easiest" English, where little would be expected of me.  I got that right!

Ms. Machunk's "Math 101" was also a revelation - honestly, could my classmates not add and subtract?  The answer was 'yes' - it was a fun review, though, as she was a novice teacher who thought to put our learning to use by having field trips to Circle Lanes (bowling alley) and the Par 3 (golf course).  She also taught "Health" class - it was the first time I heard the word "penis" spoken aloud.

"Justice in America" was memorable for me - I remember watching a prison movie ("Glass Houses" with a young Alan Alda) and writing a "Modest Proposal" with Mr. Brennan.  I may have frightened him a little bit with my essay on reinstituting slavery; I was a very tongue-in-cheek writer and may just have come off as a bit too realistic for him.  It was not slavery based on race for 1976 - it was solely based on a socio-economic factors.  Mr. Brennan's class was a revelation to me - he actually encouraged discussion and debate and his questions to us were truly thought-provoking.

Gym class...was a foreign concept.  In all my years at St. Thomas, we had precisely one gym teacher, whose fitness programs consisted of games of supervised dodgeball, kickball and other 'ball' games.  I think I may have taken golf or archery; not a stand-out memory.

"Earth Science" with Mr. Dillon was a wonderful class...he showed lots of film strips and movies and we didn't need to dissect anything, which was a relief.

Two semesters of "Home Ec", forced upon me by my mother, were supposed to help us learn cooking basics and sewing basics.  "Ma" Phelps was a terrific teacher and I still use the white sauce recipe as a base for virtually every chicken soup dish but Mrs. Barilla...let's just say I may have been the bane of her existence that year.  I understood the concept of sewing but frequently sewed the arms of my garment in upside-down or inside out.  I was dyslexic when it came to sewing and she knew it.

I remember making decent grades as a Freshman - maybe made the honor roll once or twice - but I was intent on flying under the radar by being not too good a student, nor too in need of remedial services.  If there had been awards for being totally invisible, I would have won those easily.

The Tale of the Abandoned Blog

Oh, dear.  I so intended to keep up this blog, but life has a funny way of taking us away from that which we want to do whilst we attend to that which we must do.  And thus it is August 4th; six months and three days since my last entry.  In my defense, I had the dickens of a time getting back here as I switched browsers from the ever buggy Firefox to the more stable Safari.

So let's just time-warp and fast forward through those six months and begin anew, shall we?

I'm still unpacking, sorting laundry and editing pictures from our Naushon 2011 vacation with the Control Group.  The week went distressingly fast; I've discovered that as I get older I seem to be picking up velocity along with the obligatory wrinkles.

Calf Pasture House, as seen from my canoe on Lackey's Bay.

This being our 21st year together, we've picked up a few pointers along the way.

#1.  Bring everything you think you will need, and then some, with you.  Nobody wants to go off-island to have to purchase some forgotten ingredient or necessity in Woods Hole, or worse yet, Falmouth.

#2.  The pick-up trucks hauling our food, equipment and luggage should pull up to the porch area facing Lackey's Bay, and not the 'back' of the house facing the tennis courts.  In this manner, knees are preserved with the relative paucity of steps required to move all the crap into the house.  Also, it's less sweaty.

#3.  Beds should be made as soon as the perishables and food items have been put away.  You will not have the energy to make your bed after "First Night Syndrome".  You will be lucky to even find your bed after "First Night Syndrome".

#4.  All activities except for the above shall be suspended until the mandatory "First Jump" into Lackey's Bay.  No exceptions.

From Left:  Alys, Linna, Kate, Kirsten, Devon

Settling in to "Island Mode" seems to take no time at all now.  Gone is the full day wasted as we try to adjust to having nothing in particular to do and all day to do it.  Everything can not be accomplished in one day, either - so relax, breathe in that wonderfully fresh, marginally salty sea air and pour yourself an icy cold drink as you meander out onto the porch to park your older-but-wiser buttocks on the sofa or chair or hammock, and enjoy the moment.  Welcome home.

The Winter of 2010-2011 - So Far!

Lest I forget the details of this winter, I'm figuring that smack-dab in the middle is the best time to begin a ramble about our current weather.

I am a snow-lover from way, way back.  Was there ever a feeling as joyous as laying in bed, lazing about, as your mother informed you that today was a snow day?  Or drawing back the curtain to gaze happily at the pristine, sparkling, new-fallen snow with the knowledge that you'd very soon be making snow angels and snowmen and having snowball fights?  I have a theory that those who are born in the winter, such as myself, prefer the cold snowy weather just as those July and August babies love the summertime heat.

Some background information:  our current living situation arose from a combination of conscious decisions, luck (both good and bad), brain tumors, lead poisoning and circumstances beyond our control.

We live in a tiny (480 square feet) cabin in a lake community in Watertown, Connecticut.  Our Association's beach is about 70' from our house as the crow flies, and it is a wonderful, shallow, fish-stocked lake of around 62 acres, dotted here and there with islands bearing mystical names like "Turtle Island", "Snake Island" and "That Island That Those Teenagers Boat Out To Camp On and Drink Beer".  The purchase price of the cabin combined with living near the water was an irresistible lure to us; our mortgage payment was less than half of the rent we'd been paying in Black Rock.  And it sure beat another apartment, or a cardboard box under the highway.

Be it ever so humble - or snow covered!  There's no place like home.

Our cabin has no central heat; we use a woodstove and have for 14 winters now.  It serves us well.  On the sub-zero nights, we supplement with an electric unit and that, too, serves us well.  Steve cuts and splits our wood; it keeps him fit and the saying that heating with wood warms twice (or three or four times!) is very true.

But nothing could have prepared any New Englander, no matter how hale and hardy, for the winter of 2010-2011.

Lake Winnemaug Beach after a light dusting.  December 2010.

It started off innocently enough with a much-anticipated snowstorm on December 27th.  As the kids were already on their school breaks it was embraced as the beloved first "real snowfall" of the winter.  Little did we know...

Although the storms are starting to blur together in my memory, we got around a foot or slightly more that weekend.  It was a beautiful, light, fluffy snow until it got compacted by the sun.

New Year's weekend was unusually warm; we celebrated as has been our tradition for the past 20 years by gathering with the Control Group* members at a hunting lodge in Saunderstown, RI.  The driveway in to Pausacaco Lodge wasn't plowed (few dirt paths are) but with a 4WD Subaru Baja, the snow was no problem for us.  Not so for Cal's Honda, or Jamie & Kim's Toyota, or Justin and Ellen's mini-van.  But only the van got stuck and that, upon leaving, so the group good-naturedly piled into the Subaru to go push him out, laughing all the way.

We got a freshener-upper on January 3rd; a couple of inches to fit to cover the grime but not inconvenience folks.  That would occur on the following Thursday into Friday.  Around six to seven inches of the still-novel, still somewhat beautiful precipitation graced my birthday and I reveled in being able to stay home, cook on the woodstove, make my own birthday cakes and just generally loll about indolently.

January 7th, 2010 - Enforcing the Cardinal rule; keep your feeders filled during storms and afterwards!

January 11th had a couple of inches, bringing the snowfall totals in Hartford to a nice, even two feet since December 26th's storm.  January 12th doubled that number to 48" in an epic storm which was referred to by our elderly meteorologist Dr. Mel, giddily, as "a perfect storm".  A perfect pain in the buttocks, and the novelty of a snowy winter was beginning to wear off rapidly.  It was around this time that anybody over the age of thirty started hearkening back to the snow of their childhood winters.  We got around 28" during this particular dumping.

January 12-13, 2011.  Our neighbor Dave with the gold standard in personal snow removal.  Yes, the snow really is piled up to John's neck.  

January 17th gave us around 2".  January 18th and 19th also featured snow in fits and starts.  Ditto January 21st, 24th, 25th, 26th, and 28th.  Storms small and large, combining to make drifts in our yard well over four feet in places, and corners of our neighborhood piled with eight to ten foot concretions of grimy, solid snow.

January 27, 2011.  The path - or lack thereof - to the bird feeders.

According to the National Weather Service, records at Bradley Airport just northeast of us show 43" for the month of January by 1/23, and 57" since December 26th.  On Tuesday, January 25th, we were granted the dubious distinction of having broken the record set in 1945 of the snowiest January in the 105 years such records have been kept.  By Friday, January 27th, we overachieved by having just experienced the snowiest month on record, ever.  Yesterday totals were astonishing; for the month of January 2011, snowfall amounts totaled 57" just for the month past, and a whopping, astounding 71.2" since we welcomed that first snowfall shortly after Christmas.  Close to six feet of snow in 36 days.

Is it any wonder that we're complaining, and making plans for trips to warm, tropical places?  I think not!  The scariest part?  We're still 47 days from Spring, tomorrow is Ground Hog Day, and this winter has more in store for us.

I am planning a trip back to Florida:

Key West, Florida January 2007

Key West, Florida January 2007  Quite a few pounds ago.

*The Control Group is comprised primarily of Steve's cousins and assorted friends.  Our motto, which we have now outlived, was "Live Fast, Die Young, Leave a Beautiful Corpse".  That ship has sailed.  The philosophy originally was:  with society at large being so obsessed with living forever, and eating healthy foods, not drinking to excess, quitting smoking, etc., we would function as the group against which they could compare themselves.  We do this as a public service.  So far, so good!  :)

And Sometimes In The Springtime and Sometimes In The Fall...

I wear my pink pajamas in the summer when it hot
and I wear my woolen undies in the winter when it's not
and sometimes in the springtime
and sometimes in the fall
I jump between the sheets with nothing on at all!

Glory glory hallelujah
Glory glory what's it to ya?
sometimes in the springtime and sometimes in the fall
I jump between the sheets with nothing on at all! Woo!

One redeeming grace of going to summer camp was that big yellow school bus, my only experience during my school days of transportation other than biking or shoe leather express.  And we sang.  Badly, off tune, oft rude lyrics made up on the spur of the moment (scatological humor was huge amongst grade school kids; still is as far as I know) that implied knowledge we really didn't possess.  We sang "Jeremiah Was A Bullfrog" - that was our most contemporary offering.  We sang "We All Live In A Yellow School Bus".  "Bingo".  "The Ants Go Marching One By One, Hurrah".  "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall".  "Little Bunny FuFu".  "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt", "Found A Peanut", "Do Your Ears Hang Low", "Titanic", "Rise and Shine", "There's A Hole In The Bucket", "Three Cheers for the Busdriver" (Three-ee cheers for the busdriver, the busdriver, the busdriver, three cheers for the busdriver the worst of them all.  He's calm, he's cool, he drives like a foo-ool...) and numerous others, which kept us entertained on the interminable ride through Fairfield, Trumbull, Easton and Monroe to our destination.  According to Mapquest, the distance as the car drives is around 16 miles, but we didn't drive as the car drives.  Up and down side streets, stopping every so often to pick up a camper, down Ruane Street, up the Post Road, up Sturges, up Burr Street, up by the Aspetuck Reservoir, through the back streets of Easton to Sport Hill Road, right onto Route 59 and then right into camp.  This route was so ingrained that by the time I finally got my driver's license and had an opportunity to solo, this was my chosen practice route.  Following in the tire tracks of that old yellow school bus.

Not my actual car but close; mine had cancer of the rocker panels, which I 'repaired', thus earning my Bessie the title of "The Bondo Beast".  She went on to a restorer when I sold her; her new owner stopped by a year later and took me for a ride in the newly restored, candy-apple red, now valuable vintage car.  I wanted to cry.  1969 Plymouth Sport Sattelite Convertible, 8-cylinder, 383 engine.  I miss her to this day.

I found out just now, by using Mapquest, that my high school experience might have been far different, if I had taken the bus instead of riding my bike or walking.  Because I discovered that my house is 1.44 miles from the high school.  For some reason (probably my frequent absences during 8th grade and missing all the guidance counselors from Ludlowe who came to speak) I was never on the school bus route list.  Maggie Hyde lived about 1/4 mile down Old Field Road and she rode the bus.  Life is indeed unfair.