weather | dual personalities

July 11, 2013

Into each life some rain must fall

by chuckofish

I was talking to daughter #1 yesterday–I was at work and she was walking down Columbus Avenue on her way to work in New York City. It started to rain and she had to run. There were no toadstools to wait under.

AP photo

It was rainy as well in my flyover town, and I was reminded of this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882).

The Rainy Day

THE DAY is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

But you know, the sun always comes out again…and the tiger lilies are blooming!

Who can be sad for long when these wonderful flowers are blooming in our backyard and all along flyover byways?

June 3, 2013

Long may you run

by chuckofish

It was quite a weekend. I took part in more socializing than in the first 5 months of the year combined.

A very dear friend and her husband were visiting from Virginia and we had dinner with them at a friend’s house with other members of our high school class–a mini reunion of sorts. There were tornado sirens and we turned on the TV during dinner to make sure we weren’t in the path of disaster. Luckily the tornadic activity passed by us to the north, but you can never be too sure. Unbenownst to us, there was a lot of local damage and power outages galore.

Oh my goodness.

On Saturday we went to my old man’s 40th high school reunion which was held at his bff’s house up on a bluff above the Mississippi River.

BFFs

Such a view!

There was a pig roast (sorry, no pictures) and lots of nostalgic ’70s music. Hello, Neil Young.

Martin and Cap check out those newfangled phone devices.

The boys shot off a cannon and there were fireworks.

On Sunday I went to church because I was reading the second lesson. It was one of those “as we have said before, so now I repeat…” exhortations that ol’ St. Paul is known for. Great stuff. My favorite to read. While we were passing the peace, the first lector said, “Good job,” to me. “As usual. We had the A-team today.” I chuckled, but I was pleased. I’ve never been on the A-team before. Boo yah.

I had brunch with my BFFs from Virginia and then went home to work in the yard a little before it rained. A lovely end to an exhausting but wonderful weekend.

#Oldfriends

Oh, this old world
Keeps spinning round
It’s a wonder tall trees
Ain’t layin’ down
There comes a time.

7 Comments

April 11, 2013

It’s official

by chuckofish

AP Photo

Spring is here. Last night we had our first severe weather of the season in our flyover state. “I heard this big ol’ boom,” said one victim telling her story to the ubiquitous reporters who swarmed the area after the debris settled. The weather teams were on high alert last night and much of the primetime TV schedule was pre-empted.

Unfortunately I had to go to the airport to pick up my husband last night who was returning from a conference in California. We made it home before it got bad. We literally pulled into the garage and went inside and it got dark and the rain came down. Phew. The worst of the storm went north of us.

I do love our mid-western weather, and, indeed, weather. But severe weather, not so much. No one was hurt last night and for that we are grateful.

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March 26, 2013

“In my opinion, too much attention to weather makes for instability of character.” *

by chuckofish

In weather news the National Weather Service said 12.4 inches fell here on Sunday, beating the one-day record for St. Louis of 12.1 inches set one hundred years ago on March 24, 1912. Woohoo! The high Monday reached the mid 30s, compared with a high of 76 degrees a year ago on that date and 59 the normal high on March 25.

Yesterday I decided to venture forth into our flyover landscape which was draped in the fluffy white stuff. I decided that such an expedition warranted the wearing of my size 5 1/2 Fabiano hiking boots that I wore everyday when I was a junior at Williams College back in the day. They are one of the few things that still fits from my college days–haha! As you can imagine, I do not have many occasions to wear them anymore.

Tromping about in the snow is one of my favorite things to do, and there was much to see in the winter wonderland that is our yard.

This is a flower pot on the front porch:

I wonder how the birds are who live in this rhododendron bush?

This chair looks like it is upholstered in snow!

I guess these guys will have to wait a little longer to adorn the garden.

“You wake up on a winter morning and pull up the shade, and what lay there the evening before is no longer there–the sodden gray yard, the dog droppings, the tire tracks in the frozen mud, the broken lawn chair you forgot to take in last fall. All this has disappeared overnight, and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home, which is no less shimmering and white as it falls. The earth is covered with it, and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence. It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at, but unless the child in you is entirely dead, it is snow, too, that can make the heart beat faster when it catches you by surprise that way, before your defenses are up. It is snow that can awaken memories of things more wonderful than anything you ever knew or dreamed.”

― Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale

The dual personalities frolicking in the snow circa 1964

The dual personalities frolicking in the snow with their older brother circa 1964

Let it snow! We’ll be roasting here before you know it.

*Elizabeth Goudge, The Little White Horse

4 Comments

February 22, 2013

Things happen

by chuckofish

One of the best things about being the Boss Lady is that I get to call a snow day every once in awhile. Well, yesterday was one of those days. It wasn’t Snowmageddon, but for our flyover state it was significant white stuff.

We started with sleet in the morning.

And continued as snow throughout the day.

I hunkered down with my little home version of a potbelly stove:

I read more of The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather and munched on Valentine’s candy.

I watched Stagecoach on TCM.

Ringo: I used to be a good cowhand. But things happen.
Dallas: Yes. Things happen.

What a great movie! What a great day!

Unfortunately, although I called a snow day for our students today, I have to go in myself. C’est la vie!

4 Comments

June 29, 2012

Hot as satan’s hoof

by chuckofish

Last week I replaced the pillows on my wicker sofa in the Florida Room. Unfortunately, it has been way too hot (108-degrees yesterday!) to enjoy this room except in the early hours of the day. Zut alors!

We are in the middle of a drought as well. Maybe tonight would be a good night to watch “The Rainmaker”–that’s the movie (1956) with Katharine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster, not the John Grisham one released in 1997 with Matt Damon. Or maybe not. It’s not a great movie.