naturally, since we are getting ready to cruise, i have been watching the tropical activity closely. especially with all of the ‘canes that have been going on in the last month or so. so i was very pleased last week when, all week, there was no clyconic activity in the atlantic or gulf (according to the nhc). then, on friday morning, there was a big yellow blob on the map indicating a low potential for tropical formation within 48 hours. that same afternoon, the blob was orange which means medium potential… yesterday was a busy day of having fun so i didn’t look at it at all. but today, the blob is twice as big and red – high potential for tropical formation. fantastic!
A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM LOCATED OVER THE NORTHEASTERN CARIBBEAN SEAABOUT 100 MILES SOUTH OF PUERTO RICO IS PRODUCING WIDESPREADCLOUDINESS AND THUNDERSTORMS OVER THE LESSER ANTILLES…ANDADJACENT CARIBBEAN AND ATLANTIC WATERS. THIS SYSTEM IS SHOWINGSIGNS OF INCREASED ORGANIZATION…AND UPPER-LEVEL WINDS AREEXPECTED TO GRADUALLY BECOME MORE FAVORABLE FOR DEVELOPMENT TOOCCUR OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS. A TROPICAL DEPRESSION COULDFORM LATER TODAY AS THE SYSTEM MOVES SLOWLY NORTH-NORTHWESTWARD. AN AIR FORCE RESERVE RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT IS SCHEDULED TOINVESTIGATE THE SYSTEM THIS AFTERNOON. LOCALLY HEAVY RAINFALL ANDSTRONG GUSTY WINDS WILL AFFECT PUERTO RICO…THE VIRGIN ISLANDS…AND THE NORTHERN LEEWARD ISLAND THROUGH MONDAY. INTERESTS IN THESEAREAS SHOULD CLOSELY MONITOR PRODUCTS FROM THEIR LOCAL WEATHERFORECAST OFFICE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS SYSTEM.
last night hubby and i enjoyed some rock band and wii sports, just the two of us. we really don’t play much when we don’t have company but we really should make it more of a habit. it was a good way to spend a crummy tv evening. of course, hubby still kicks my butt at pretty much anything and everything but as long as we’re having fun together, i won’t complain.
truly it is. there is a wonderfully cool breeze. the water is calm and back to normal clarity. the sandbars have been restructured significantly. our beach is higher and cleaner thanks to all of the sand that ike brought ashore. it’s simply lovely out there. i adore our backyard.
yesterday was so beautiful that we decided to go snorkeling after work. the water was comfortable and clear. it was interesting to see how much the gulf-floor was changed by ike. i knew it had since you can see the difference in the sandbars from up here. not to mention that our beach itself is almost two feet higher than it was the beginning of last week (i can tell this because the first two steps of our walkway are under sand now and the showers at the foot of the walkway that used to be hip-high are now below the knee). but it was amazing how different it is under the water now. it used to gradually get semi-deep from the shore and then shallow again for the sandbar and then deep after that. now, it plunges to deep right off shore and the sandbars are pockets of shallow almost perpendicular to shore. it doesn’t gradually build up to the sandbars either, there’s a three or four foot wall of sand that creates each one. we found some great shells. and there were some huge crabs washed in. it was a very relaxing way to spend an hour and a half. we ended up pulling our heads out of the water just in time to see a magnificent technicolor sunset into it. and since the air is starting to get cool at night, we made a mad dash to the hottub to warm up when we got out.
this weekend we had my dad and his wife come to visit. we had a great time and i think they did too.
dad and rhena
hubby getting pulled around by his kite
ready for liftoff!
hubby and his kite
wii rocked!
wii rolled!
wii even golfed a bit
poor dad got beat by everyone
it seemed like my dad really enjoyed the wii. especially golf and bowling. other activities included walking around the marina, driving through our favorite shopping plaza (rhena’s got a bad foot and can’t walk much), looking for shells on the beach, swimming, hot tubbing, pokering, and conversing. it was a fun visit but having morning persons as houseguests can be tiring. i guess it was fair though because i kept them up way past their bedtime and they woke me up way before my weekend wake time. i was happy to get a three hour nap after they headed out yesterday though.
which is the mexican restaurant that we frequented with the office group in ga. when i say we frequented it, i’m talking pretty much every-other-friday lunch for four years. we miss it very much so we decided to start looking around here for a good mexican restaurant. in that pursuit, we stopped at a place in town last night to give it a try. it had all of the indicators of good mexican – silly name, hole-in-the-wall looks, lots of cars in the parking lot. it was such a let down, folks. the chips were too thick and chewy. the salsa had no flavor (seriously, it might as well have been water with chunks). the meat seemed to be cooked in the same taco season mix that i buy at the grocery store and make at home because i don’t know any better. i ordered nachos and, instead of a thick, soupy plate of chips drowning in melty cheese sauce and meat, i got a plate of burnt chips with meat and shredded cheese sprinkled and burnt over them. needless to say, we will continue our search for another la parrilla but we WILL NOT be going back to los rancheros.
i plurked yesterday about the surge that we are getting from ike. i’m a little surprised because it’s a slightly bigger surge than we saw from gustav and gustav was much, much closer to us than ike. i didn’t expect to get very much from him. anyhow, these are some pix that do not at all portray how impressive it truly is.
that’s our dunes and walkway, i couldn’t catch the bigger surges that were coming up into the dunes and well under the walkway
this is between our property and the one next door, you can see in the sand how much higher it was getting
and just for reference, this is what our backyard usually looks like (i didn’t have any looking straight down at the walkway and dunes but this shows the area from the above pic)
it’s funny because i was so exhausted all evening from my stair climbing yesterday but if i slept an hour the whole night, i’d be shocked. i finally fell asleep well after 04:00. i was wide awake again at 05:00. i dozed a couple of times before the alarm started hounding me at 06:30. i LOVE nights like that. i was so tired but i was just… restless. and to top it off, there was a noise. see, hubby has been doing some a/c work around here. he’s been adding vents into our bedroom to get me more of the cold at night, which is wonderful! unfortunately, the stronger air is apparently affecting the fan so when the air starts blowing, the fan makes this horrible clicking noise sporadically until the air stops. granted, the sound is not incredibly loud. i’ve actually noticed it for days but hadn’t paid enough attention to it to figure out exactly when/how it’s happening. but i’m one of those people that when i can’t sleep, ANY noise is enough to drive me batty. this is how hubby gets in trouble for snoring. it’s not that he really snores loudly, really just heavy breathing, but when i can’t sleep it rubs my nerves and furthers my non-sleeping. i strongly considered putting in ear plugs last night (since they are right there next to the bed from all that concrete drilling last week) but i’m the keeper of the alarm clock. hubby doesn’t even hear it in the morning. by this morning, the clicking of the fan had me wanting to drill a hole through my brain with a rusty spoon. here’s hoping that ya’ll had a more restful night than me.
the weekend was sort of a bust because of my non-cooperative head. i had planned on doing some nice paddling on the kayaks but it just wasn’t meant to be. for the most part, we just rested and hot-tubbed. yesterday afternoon, we did manage to get the snorkel equipment out and enjoyed some underwater voyeurism. we found several pretty shells and i even nearly caught a few fish. one shell, which i just HAD TO HAVE, was occupied. hubby and i spent about an hour trying to find another shell with the right shape and size for tenant relocation. (no, the tenant was not happy to be carried around that whole time and kept pinching my fingers in protest.) hubby finally found another shell just like the one i covetted but with less pretty coloring. i held the two shells together and it only took a minute or two for the tenant to relocate. everyone was happy (well, one of us might have been a bit angry and kept waving claws at the two crazy giants that had held him hostage). we released him and then continued to follow him as he made his underwater getaway. i’m certain he was happy after we left. i wish we had a reef here. that would make this the absolutely perfect home. in the meantime, all of this practice snorkeling is getting me very excited about the snorkeling we’ll be doing on our cruise in fourteen days. assuming, of course, that the cruise doesn’t get cancelled due to a parade of hurricanes!
i don’t know what i’ve done wrong but my head has been so very angry at me this week. much more so than it has been in quite a while. last night was pure hell. usually, even with my worse migraines, i can take some motrin, lay down in the cold, wrap a blanket around my head, and it’s gone in just a few hours. last night, i took four doses of motrin and still ended the night in agony and sick to my stomach. fortunately, i am able to move again this morning but my head is still hurting. i am very much hoping to keep it at a dull ache today and not let it spiral into that hellish torture again.
it was a wonderful evening of wine and hot-tubbing. we had a very nice conversation with a nola evacuee. she was a pleasant woman with a jovial kid. she’s going through a divorce and, for some reason, i get very sad when i hear about someone becoming a divorcée.
as you can see from the sidebar, i spent far too much time today plurking and working to even try to think of a post. shame on me.
i’m really starting to feel like all of this drilling is a personal attack on me. the headache that i worked so hard to get bearable is now throbbing my eyeballs again. this is the first thing that has really had me questioning condo-living. i know things have to be fixed but all i can think while trying not to cry from the pain of the drill reverberating through the concrete and into my teeth is “why won’t they just leave me alone?!”