Battening down the hatches for Hurricane Irene

Still no damn D batteries anywhere.  When am I going to learn to stock this stuff up before an emergency???

The guy in the condo beside us has come for the weekend.  I think he’s from Maryland or somewhere further north.  I don’t know too much about him but we’re all friendly.  He acts like it’s not going to be a big deal but he’s tying down his picnic table and throwing sandbags in front of the condo where it always floods during a storm whether it’s a small one or a large one.  He rents out his condo over the summers to tourists but this was his weekend there.  Some weekend.  There’s two other families who live in these condos, the rest are for tourists.  The one older guy on one side might be still in the hospital but his girlfriend is there at the house.  I see her every now and then, don’t know whether she’s weathering out the storm or not.  Then there’s this real cool guy on the other side.  He is 82 and more fit than I am believe that or not.  I love him to death.  I don’t know whether he’s going to weather it out or not but my hunch is that he is knowing him.  The tourists are still here in a few condos and my hunch on that is that they paid over a thousand bucks to rent these things, they’re staying.  Now this is of course if we don’t have a mandatory evacuation.

If we do, we really have no plan.  Get off the island with as much personal possessions as we can.  They’ll close the causeway at some point.  They have the local police call everyone listed in their directory in case of an emergency and I must call them to put my cell number on that list.

The daughter went out and bought more supplies – she found D batteries!  We’re good there and she bought another flashlight which now we’ve got 3.  Four if I can find the other one.  Candles.  I have a few, but the daughter is allergic to scented candles so we’ll just have to make do with what we have.  I have tea lights if worse gets to worse.

Food.  Well I feel I need more.  I have a few canned products, water, drinks but if electricity goes out, we’re screwed because there’s a lot of food in the refrigerator and freezer.  We’re busy cleaning out the bottom room that acts like a storage room outside and we grabbed a couple of coolers in case we have to stock up on ice.

Dogs.  Problem problem.  Cassie is dying.  She has cancer and we were going to put her down but the daughter said no, let’s do it after the storm that she couldn’t take on anymore stress.  I sent BF out to get some more pain pills for her and explained to the vet that we were going to put her down this week but it’s going to have to be next week.  I just wanted some pills to keep her in not so much pain.  We only got 1/2 bottle this time.

As of right now, it’s noon on Thursday and a little blustery at this point.  There’s supposed to be a cold front that may push Irene further west but we don’t know it’s going to do that.  It’s always windy here so I can’t really tell if this is normal, from the cold front, or from Irene.
Am I scared?  Yes.

Hurricane Irene on its way?

I’m sorry I haven’t updated lately, been so bogged down with work, but I want to let everyone know what’s going on with Hurricane Irene as far as Chincoteague Island is concerned.  Well, I’m now worried.  My daughter has been telling me it’s coming, be prepared and I didn’t want to think about it.  Talk about depressing.  Well now it’s to the point where I’m a little worried.  No, make that a lot worried.

It hasn’t hit the Outer Banks yet, but that’s supposed to be Friday or Saturday morning, or at least that’s when the worse will happen.  We’re not really that far from the Outer Banks – about 3 or 4 hours.  What has happened in the past is that it hits North Carolina and that usually slows the thing down so that we don’t get hurricane force winds.  We don’t know at this point whether it’s going to hit the Outer Banks square on or it’s going to brush it, but it doesn’t matter – the thing is so big, it’s going to do damage.

We slipped out to Walmart earlier to get some water, etc.  No D batteries so I’ll try to hit Family Dollar tomorrow to see if they have any left.  The flashlights work at this point but I don’t know how much life they have in them and better to be safe than sorry.  We bought 2 jugs of drinking water and a big pack of smaller bottles and hope that’s going to do it.
The way this thing is looking – it’s not good.  It’s mean and wide.  And frankly I’m scared.
We have dogs.  If we have a mandatory evacuation, what are we going to do with them?  I don’t know what we’re going to do.

Beachin’ it at Nags Head, North Carolina

We are back.  Actually we’ve been back a couple of weeks now and I’m just now posting the pictures, bad me!  I might have do a part 2 as there are so many pictures but Nags Head was beautiful.  This was before the big heat wave thank goodness, but we did have a blast.  It was the perfect vacation.

So here’s a picture of Cody aka Cooter and I standing on the beautiful shoreline.  I look hunched over for some odd reason.  Must be the heavy dog.   This was taken in the afternoon but the mornings were the best.  Cooter and I would throw on our bathing suits – well he refused to wear his – run out front for him to do his morning thing, run back in the lobby to grab a cup of coffee, then head out to the beach before everyone else got up.

And this is the reason why.  Absolutely beautiful.  Cooter and I walked the beach some and came upon a family playing on the shore line.  The dad was sitting down in the water and the mom was taking a picture and when they weren’t looking, I snapped one myself!  It was just a Normal Rockwell experience if I’ve ever seen one.

And here below is back in the room.  Cooter was thirsty!

LOL, you can’t even see it, but he’s drinking out of a cup.  The hotel was Comfort Inn South Oceanfront.  The staff was super friendly (even gave Cooter a bone at check in!) and I couldn’t have stayed at a better hotel.  The downside was the fact that the rooms were a little small but everything else made up for it.  Super view.  The ocean was right off your balcony.

More pictures later but I’ll end this with a riddle.  What do you get when you take one chicken ****  smart *** dog and make him go swimming?

You get a dog who sticks his tongue out at you!
Until next time,

Beachin’ it at Nags Head, North Carolina

We are back.  Actually we’ve been back a couple of weeks now and I’m just now posting the pictures, bad me!  I might have do a part 2 as there are so many pictures but Nags Head was beautiful.  This was before the big heat wave thank goodness, but we did have a blast.  It was the perfect vacation.

So here’s a picture of Cody aka Cooter and I standing on the beautiful shoreline.  I look hunched over for some odd reason.  Must be the heavy dog.   This was taken in the afternoon but the mornings were the best.  Cooter and I would throw on our bathing suits – well he refused to wear his – run out front for him to do his morning thing, run back in the lobby to grab a cup of coffee, then head out to the beach before everyone else got up.

And this is the reason why.  Absolutely beautiful.  Cooter and I walked the beach some and came upon a family playing on the shore line.  The dad was sitting down in the water and the mom was taking a picture and when they weren’t looking, I snapped one myself!  It was just a Normal Rockwell experience if I’ve ever seen one.

And here below is back in the room.  Cooter was thirsty!

LOL, you can’t even see it, but he’s drinking out of a cup.  The hotel was Comfort Inn South Oceanfront.  The staff was super friendly (even gave Cooter a bone at check in!) and I couldn’t have stayed at a better hotel.  The downside was the fact that the rooms were a little small but everything else made up for it.  Super view.  The ocean was right off your balcony.

More pictures later but I’ll end this with a riddle.  What do you get when you take one chicken ****  smart *** dog and make him go swimming?

You get a dog who sticks his tongue out at you!
Until next time,

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother’s Day everyone!

My mother was a traveler.  In fact, it was she who put the traveling gene in me.  I was seven years old, just celebrated my birthday a few months before, when she, my step-father, sister and aunt, packed up our battered up car and headed for California.  I can’t imagine what my grandmother was going through.  Not only were we all leaving her nest, but halfway across the world, too.

I don’t even remember the day I met my step-father but he was a mean man.  He started off okay, wanted my sister and I to call him daddy, the whole nine yards, but boy was he mean.  He’d take a belt to your bare butt in a heartbeat.  I really don’t think I was that bad of a kid, but I do remember over time, my butt must have toughened up as they didn’t hurt as much as the first few go arounds.
I digress because I wanted you to get a little background of this Beverly Hills family (minus the riches) straight out of the back woods and heading for tinsel town and beyond.  My mother always wanted to be a movie star.  She was a dead ringer for Marilyn Monroe (someday I’ll have to scan a picture to show you).  The same sultry looks, the hair, the whole nine yards.  Betty Crocker and Leave it to Beaver’s mom she wasn’t, but I loved her love for travel and excitement.

She hated the Eastern Shore so when she fell in love with a young man from Rhode Island who had joined the Army and got orders to Fort Ord, California, she jumped on it.  How long did it take her to throw her kids and belongings in the car?  Wasn’t long.

The trip to California was long but the memories even as a seven-year-old will remain with me forever.  I’ve often thought about going back to Cali.  Visit the old homestead (house is gone but street is still there), walk the path I walked going back and forth to school each day, visit the library (Buena Vista Library) which used to be the old school (Abraham Lincoln Elementary) (picture below).



But when I think of Cali, I think of my mother and how she had these dreams.  My dreams are happening now, but she was always looking, searching and I really don’t think ever finding.  She wanted to be a movie star as I mentioned earlier and when that didn’t happen, she tried it with me.  I grew up with Shirley Temple curls but no dimples.  Cute as a button but no inclination to memorize words and be in front of an audience.  She was the star, I was the wardrobe person.

When my aunt decided Cali life wasn’t for children, she decided to slip out in the middle of the night and board my sister and I on a train and head back to Virginia leaving my mother behind.  I didn’t find out until about 30 years later exactly what happened but it was something she had to do for us, so she told me.

I missed my mother terribly.  I waited and waited for my precious mother to come get me.  But she never came.  Like I said, she hated the Eastern Shore.

I remember sitting on my grandmother’s front stoop as they called it back then (basically meant a bunch of cinder blocks piled on top of each other to create a landing).  I would stare off into into the quiet street out front, hoping one day she’d be pulling into the driveway.  I felt very alone back then even though I had my sister and my grandmother just loved us to pieces and was so happy we were back.

Eventually my mother did return.  Alone.  No husband anymore, just the clothes on her back and what little else she had were stuffed in an overnight bag.  But she was back.  I never knew the circumstances. I never knew why she let my aunt take us so far away from her.  I never knew why she didn’t come back to get us.  Until thirty years later when my aunt revealed to me our family’s secret.  My step-father got angry and called social services and they were coming for us in the morning.
But today isn’t about me.  It’s about my two beautiful grown kids who see a mother who has found her dreams.  Finding your dreams does not mean riches.  Finding your dreams does not mean it’s the end to finding happiness.  Finding happiness is found within and it is through me my children find strength to beat whatever trials come their way.

To you, Mother, for helping me find my path in a weird kinda way.

Girlfriends Gone Wild: Amish Country Bound!

My first trip of the year!  A couple of girlfriends and I are going back to the Amish country in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, this Wednesday!  We’ll be staying for 3 nights for some good old fashioned bonding, fun and mingling with the natives.  Last year almost to the day we paid our first visit and loved it.  So we’re going back.

Only this time it’s going to be a little different.  There’s a kid.  And a sister. Seems our girlfriend weekend is going to turn into a family affair.  I’m not so sure I’m too keen on it but I’m going to make the best of it.  Really, it’ll probably be fun.

Last time I blogged about going to Lancaster, I left out lots of neat pictures, so I’m going to include a couple now:


There’s a story behind this picture.  One of the girls, Barbara, is terrified of heights.  This bed and breakfast was sitting waaaaaaaaaay on top of this huge hill with a very steep incline.  Kim, who was driving, and I decided we wanted to see it and poor old Barbara, I know she must have peed her pants.  I didn’t know she  could turn so many colors of white.  But…once we got up there, this is what we saw:



Beautiful farmland.  We decided to ride around a bit and you would see the Amish out in their gardens or whatever.  What an experience.

So this time we’re going to change up on a few things.  We’ll be staying in the same place as it was clean and smelled good (you just never know), but instead of taking the guided tour we took last time, we’re going to take another guided tour but this one involves visiting a working homestead.  And I’d love a buggie ride at some point.

We shall see.  I’ll be blogging all about it when I get back. ;o)