Barbara Rodgers

riding out the storm

I’m not going to mince words. This is the most catastrophic event that we have faced and been able to plan for in any of our lifetimes.
~ Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy
(Emergency Operations Center, October 29, 2012)

Looking at the map above one might wonder why our governor is broadcasting such dire predictions. It’s because tropical storm force winds extend 485 miles from the hurricane’s eye. And because of the wind direction, a massive amount of water is being pushed into Long Island Sound which will likely result in an unprecedented storm surge of 4 to 8 feet here on the eastern shore of the sound, where we are, and 6 to 11 feet on the western shore and down into New York Harbor. There is a full moon today, meaning the high tides are higher than normal, even without the storm surge.

We’re about 20 feet above sea level and have not been given an evacuation order, so we’re going to ride out the storm. According to the City of Groton Government Facebook page, the roads by Eastern Point Beach are now impassable, from this morning’s high tide, and have been closed. The worst high tide is supposed to be overnight tonight.

Thank you every one for your prayers and well wishes! I’m sure we’ll lose power sooner or later, but I will have an update when possible. City of Groton

timing

I am soooooooooooooooooooooo tired……………..

It was only ten days ago that Auntie came home from the hospital with eight stitches or staples in the back of her head, on the mend, and a few days ago when her doctor removed them in his office. Yesterday Tim & I finished preparing for the big storm and went to bed, content that we were as ready for it as anyone could be.

We only had two hours of sleep when the phone rang. Auntie had fallen yet again and this time she broke her hip or her pelvis. The local hospital felt she would get better care at a bigger hospital so off we went in the wee hours of this morning for another long vigil at an emergency department until they found a bed for her so she could be admitted. When they transferred her from the gurney to the bed, as gently as possible, her cries and screams of pain tore my heart open…

After Auntie got settled and we felt satisfied that she was in good hands we had no choice but to leave her there. The sun was rising behind the gathering clouds – a monster storm is on its way. I saw on the news this evening that the hospital was calling in extra staff and testing its generators in preparation. Governor Malloy has declared a state of emergency. He said the storm is a hurricane blending with a nor’easter and that we could have an eight foot storm surge. The barometric pressure is forecast to be so low it will break all the record lows in this state.

I still haven’t been able to sleep. And now I have an earache.

Must get a cup of green tea and honey and then some sleep now, but I hope to have some time tomorrow to visit blogs and respond to comments. I have much catching up to do in the blogosphere, at least until we lose power! Good night all – things will surely look brighter in the morning.

a mysterious tune

“The Moon over a Waterfall” by Hiroshige

Everything is determined by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust – we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.
~ Albert Einstein
(The Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929)

Go out of the house to see the moon, and’t is mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Nature)

We tap our toes to chaste love songs about the silvery moon without recognizing them as hymns to copulation.
~ Barbara Kingsolver
(High Tide in Tucson)

The moon is quite a show off given the chance. The stars make a sound when they shine so bright. Water so blue and so black.
~ Dave Matthews
(Twitter, February 16, 2009)

an adventurous world-traveling faerie

10.12.12 ~ Old Lyme, Connecticut — Sakuyu, a Japanese Faerie Garden created by Bobbie Padgett,
DeeDee Charnock, Gay Thorn, Teddi Curtiss & Sheila Wertheimer

Bella, an adventurous world-traveling faerie, changed her name to Kat-Sura after visiting the famous garden in Japan. So enamored with Japanese culture that she returned and built a Japanese-style faerie house complete with tea house and stroll garden. A leader of the faerie community, Kat-Sura invites all the faeries to stroll (or flutter) through her Japanese garden to learn about the plants. They also experience a tea ceremony in her tea house.
~ Wee Faerie Village: Land of Picture Making

If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.
~ Samuel Smiles
(Thrift: Or How to Get On in the World)

Oh my! Hurricane Sandy is coming up the coast from the south, there is another early winter storm approaching from the west (remember the Halloween Nor’easter last year?), and arctic air is rushing down from the north, and some meteorologists are telling us to brace ourselves for another “perfect storm.” Remember the one in 1991???

And so the excitement begins – Sandy’s going this way, no, she’s going that way! Where will she make landfall? Will she still be a hurricane when she gets here? On Monday “something” will be happening here on the Connecticut shoreline. So will she threaten our son and his family in Georgia on her way up here?

My sister called this morning wanting to know what our plans are. I worry about them up there in the woods surrounded by trees that might fall on the house. She worries about us down here by the sound and vulnerable to the storm surge. We know where to find higher ground, though, and the evacuation plan is in place should it be needed.

There’s concern over the full moon on Monday, and how it will pull even more water into Long Island Sound and cause major coastal flooding and beach erosion.

I love storms, as long as they don’t get too exciting. We will go out tonight and stock up on bottled water, peanut butter and crackers and canned sardines, just in case. And we’ll be keeping our eyes on all the weather reports!

those songs graze like buffalo

When music is your life, there is a key that gets you to the core. I am so grateful that I still have Crazy Horse, knock on wood. You see, they are my window to the cosmic world where the muse lives and breathes. I can find myself there and go to the special area of my soul where those songs graze like buffalo. The herd is still there, and the plains are endless. Just getting there is the key thing, and Crazy Horse is my way of getting there. That is the place where music lives in my soul. It is not youth, time, or age. I dream of playing those long jams and floating over the herd like a condor. I dream of the changing wind playing on my feathers, my brothers and sisters around me, silently telling their stories and sharing their spirits with the sky. They are my life.
~ Neil Young
(Waging Heavy Peace)

magic apples

“Vase with Apples and Foliage” by Henri Fantin-Latour

This little paradise was a happy place. Odin and the other gods often visited, marveling at Iduna’s kindness and delighting in her humor and her wit. Yet there was another reason that they came; Iduna possessed a special treasure — a golden chest of magic apples that kept all those who ate them ever young. Truly it was the precious fruit that kept the gods immortal. Odin knew the value of these apples. He never ventured on a journey without a few to take along.
~ Marianna Mayer
(Iduna & The Magic Apples)

faerie in charge of droplets of dew

Dewey Greenleaf is the faerie in charge of droplets of dew that appear early each day on the garden’s flowers and plants. He knows that Impressionist artists love to paint the reflections of light, sun, and sky captured by delicate dew and soft mist. So each day at dawn, before any painters arrive, he collects and freezes the glistening drops that form on his multi-level home to preserve their beauty for everyone to see.
~ Wee Faerie Village: Land of Picture Making

The fairy poet takes a sheet
Of moonbeam, silver white;
His ink is dew from daisies sweet,
His pen a point of light.
~ Joyce Kilmer
(Fairy House Handbook)

faerie of tree stumps and dead wood

Tym-Brrr is the faerie of tree stumps and dead wood, a subject often depicted in the foreground of landscape paintings. Twisted and broken trees suggest the awesome power of nature; the aftermath of a lightning storm or strong winds. Tree stumps, on the other hand, humanize an otherwise wild scene. Tym-Brr eats and plays in one cave, sleeps in another, and stores his sailboat for seeking out driftwood in the third. Clues to how trees become “never green” are burned into the outer walls.
~ Wee Faerie Village: Land of Picture Making

Fairies are invisible and inaudible like angels. But their magic sparkles in nature.
~ Lynn Holland
(A Faerie Treasury)

story-telling

“Mrs. Cassatt Reading to Her Grandchildren” by Mary Cassatt

If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.
~ Rudyard Kipling
(Rudyard Kipling, A Life)

I beg of you, you good people who want to hear stories told: look at this page and recognize the wisdom of my grandmother and of all old story-telling women!
~ Isak Dinesen
(Last Tales)

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
~ Muriel Rukeyser
(Out of Silence: Selected Poems)