Category: Weather

Tonight we’re getting our first serious storm of the season. I love this time of year, sitting up in my chair by the double window in my bedroom/office and watching the storm roll in and then by.

All the blooms are gone, replaced by the Missouri green. Seems to have come early this year, and the only flowering trees left are the dogwoods. These last of the season blossoms are fast becoming a favorite of mine; I’ve always been a sucker for a late bloomer.

For some odd reason, I always feel like baking during a storm, and tonight was no exception. Nice, sweet golden egg cake with dark, rich chocolate frosting. Probably one of the classic cakes of all time, and rightfully so. Relatively easy to make, too (”add egg, beat; add egg, beat; add egg, lick spoon; add egg, beat”).

But I was kept awake much of the night last night by the trailer to tonight’s storm, and as I was taking the cake in its large glass pan from the oven, it started to slip from my oven mitts. I juggled it to keep it from dropping, and ended up putting the length of my right forearm against the hot oven wall. My that was really unpleasant and even holding the arm under cold water for five minutes hasn’t dulled the pain completely or kept it from getting red.

Tonight is a night where I treat myself to nighttime Tylenol. After I have a piece of yellow cake with rich, dark chocolate frosting that is. Doesn’t that sound good? Don’t you wish you were me?

I love storms. Every year at this time I come back with the same phrase, “I love storms”. Regular as the clock on the wall and the mist in the mornings, “I love storms”. Isn’t it nice that as changeable as all this is, some things are consistent? I mean, I could write, “We had a huge storm tonight. It was awful, I hated it”, and then you’d suffer the vertigo of suddenly changed expectations.

(”Whoa! Don’t sneak that kind of change up on a bod! There are children present!”)

During the worst of the storm when the rain is coming down hard, I like to sit at the window and let my fancy roam. Tonight I thought about the drops of water that were falling, and how at one time they were part of a stream, that flowed from a lake, that was the remains of a mighty ocean that once covered the earth. The sun heated the water and it rose into the clouds that flew from Vancouver, over the Rockies, across the plains until it fell on the lawn in front of our place, where the bunny that’s no longer afraid of me makes its home.

The water causes the grass to grow, which is then eaten by the bunny, who will, die and be eaten in turn, and the water will be returned to soil, and eventually joined with other water and during another heavy rain, flow downhill to the drain and from the drain to the river, and back to the lake, and back to the ocean that exists now.

It’s a pretty thought, isn’t it?

Then the cycle begins anew, and the drop in the ocean is turned into mist and from there into cloud except this time the water falls over Washington DC where it becomes part of the reservoir, and flows through a pipe, and another, and another, until it becomes one of a thousand thousand other drops used to fill a crystal water decanter–where it is used to wash down a pretzel being eaten by a head of state.

He goes to the bathroom and the drop is released into the sewers and back into the ocean, yet again, where it becomes cloud, over land, land, land, until the weight is too much and the drop must needs fall…right on my head, as I leave the car to walk to the house (past the bunny), confirming what I’ve known all along: George Bush is pissing on me.

You know, even with the pain pills and the fun, foolishness, and fotos, my arm still hurts, so good-night.

You only have to look at the *severe weather map to find that most of the country from the midwest to the east is suffering either high wind advisories or winter storms. We in St. Louis are in the middle of the high wind and with dropping temperatures, and there is no way I’ll be out today.

I just noticed that Weather Underground is providing syndication feeds and I subscribed for my zip zone. It also demonstrates what happens when you get too many ’subscribe’ buttons on a page. They’re beginning to block the weather photos I enjoy so much.

However, if we’re windy today, and cold, we’re not as cold as some, as witness the poem that Jerry wrote, At Minus Seventeen of which I only excerpted one stanza, with strong recommendations you slip, slide, and scramble over to his site for the rest:

And those of us with skinny asses
lacking essential blubber masses
desperately remained at home
ordering long johns on the phone
to only get a pair of diminutive woollies
that cut off blood to our extremities
it is less than it seems at minus seventeen

*All links in this post are guaranteed to be 100% fresh, and free of foreign contaminants

It’s hard to believe looking at this photo that a scant 12 hours before, the temperature was in the 70’s and I was out walking in my t-shirt, driving with the windows down. We went from windy, warm, and wet to a very wet and strong thunderstorm last night, which turned into a snow storm at mid-day. The Meramec, which had been falling is now rising again. And this is our dry season.

Luckily, the odd weather pattern we’ve been experiencing is supposedly over, and we should be looking at a relatively normal winter from this point on. Though it may seem nice to have such temperate conditions, it’s hard to adjust to the weather when it changes so quickly: one day freezing, the next day spring warm, with the barometer rising and falling with each cycle.

Of course, those who have been buried under four feet of snow for the last two months are probably less than sympathetic to my complaints.

Weather Underground issued a report saying this has been the wettest new year since Missouri has started keeping track of the weather. The Meramec will hit flood stage soon, and by this weekend should be three feet over its banks in places.

I am grateful we haven’t had the snow and the ice, but rain for five straight days has kept me indoors and made it impossible to go to Michigan, as I had planned. In fact, from the weather reports, I doubt I’ll head north for a couple of months, at least.

No hiking or walks, either. In fact, very little other than coding, and at the moment, this isn’t bringing a great deal of satisfaction. I’m in a restless mood. I need a change of scene, even away from my beloved hills. However, I also have tasks I need to accomplish this month, so I’ll have to take advantage when the clouds break, and hope I can find contentment when I’m back out on the paths.