Missyisms

Still Wet

I took these pictures on Sept. 18, but then forgot about them so I'm back dating this post.

Again, here's how it looked during the rains:

 

And a few days later...this water receded pretty quickly. 

 

At least the ducks were happy... 

 

But this road was closed for 1.5 weeks after the rain. Even after it was opened, the water was on the road for several more days. 

There are still signs of flood damage in many areas. There's a spot just down the road from the picture above where they still have sand bags trying to keep water out of electrical boxes. Click any of the images for a bigger view.

During and After

The waters are receding in some locations, but going up in other areas. Here's the picture I posted on the 13^th during the rains.

Here's an update. Unfortunately, I didn't angel the picture in the same direction. The tree in the picture below is the front far left tree in the picture above. Sorry about that, but you can still see that the water is going receding, but not back to normal. (The sky is still gray. There were some blue patches today, but none in the image below.)

I don't have pictures of it, but there are still roads closed due to flooding. The city my parent's live in had a river crest today and flood a downtown street. We're still under flood warnings until at least tomorrow.

Ike Updates

My cousin's home inland from Beaumont is okay, but that entire area will be without electricity for some time. The grid is under floodwater. My cousin's husband has been building them a second home on the Galveston peninsula. They haven't been able to get to this home, but have seen it on a web cam. Their house has apparently survived better than those around it, but has lost it's garage and patio. Many of the houses near it are completely gone. Her husband knew what he was doing to build a secure home. They don't know when they'll be allowed to get to this home.

We haven't heard anything from my uncle. Since they were in Colorado, they might not know about their house yet. A friend of Mom's is at her mother's where they have no electricity, but no damage. It's going to take Texas a while to dig out of this. They're in my prayers.

Ike continued influencing the weather here in the Chicago area today with lots more rain. They're saying we've set 1-day and 2-day rain records, but I haven't heard the totals. (There are certain records that are better off NOT being set. This was one of them.) I saw more flooded and closed roads today. And very sadly, the news is reporting at least three weather-related deaths. It's scary how fast the water rises and catches people. Even though it finally stopped raining this afternoon and the sun (what's that?) is supposed to shine tomorrow, we're still under flood warnings.

I went to church in a deluge this morning wearing a long dress rain coat in an attempt to keep dry. It seems like we're either bone dry here or it is poring down rain. I think I need to give in and buy a full-sized umbrella. All I have is the small collapsible ones. Where does one buy a full-sized umbrella that won't fall apart during it's first use? Speaking of umbrellas, since this is record breaking rainfall and everybody was using umbrellas, they asked everyone to open their umbrellas during church so they could take a picture. The sanctuary was flooded with colors. I hope they'll put the picture on the web.

Here's another picture from my sub-division that I took this afternoon:

There are two baseball fields and a soccer field under the water.

Not So Hypocritical After All

Yesterday I felt hypocritical...today I still do, but not as much. Here are a few pictures from the Chicago area today:

Copyright Chicago Tribune submitter.

After driving through several flooded intersections, I got to the one above and gave up and came home. This is about 3 to 4 miles south of my home.

Copyright Chicago Tribune.

Above is a car floating on the Eden's Highway. (Thankfully, I was nowhere near this.)

An image I took less than a mile from my home. (Click for a bigger view.) This is a retention pond that has crested it banks. None of the trees, including the ones in the background and the far left, should be in the water. I'd say the water is 40 or more feet beyond it's banks in this direction. On the far side of the image, the water was across the street and might be inside of some of the homes. I'm thankful that the inside of my house is still dry. 

But still. Many in Texas have it much worse than we do. 

Copyright Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Copyright AP.

And it will continue raining the next day or two for many of us. And here's why:

Hurricane Ike is also the cause of the system causing so much flooding in Chicago. Scary. And more rain to come.

I don't know what I was thinking last night when I said I thought my cousin was far enough away from the storm to be OK. She was, but only because she and her husband had already evacuated their home. If you've been seeing news out of Beaumont, Texas, my cousin lives one city inland from there. They're 90 minutes west of Houston and the area was hit hard. We don't know how theirs or my uncle's home north of Houston faired.

Hypocrites?

Is it just me or does anybody else here in the Chicago area feel like a hypocrite? We're under a flash flood warning. Seems rather silly considering what is going on in the Houston area. We haven't had a great deal of rain, but it's been a lot in a very short time. I looked at the radar and even though it has been raining all day, the worst is yet to come with heavy storms. So even though it feels hypocritical...it's dangerous too.

But enough about us, Houston is in for a scary night and maybe a few days. We're actually supposed have severe rain from Ike on Sunday evening...joy. My aunt and uncle are in Colorado right now, so they are safe, but their home is in danger. We also have several family friends in the Houston area. One can't leave because her 80+ year old mother has just left the hospital with a broken hip. They're riding out the storm in their home north of Houston. One of my cousins lives near the Texas/Louisiana border; we hope she's far enough away to be completely safe.

In other non-weather news, I called the animal eye specialist today to get Reggie an appointment. I told the receptionist what the vets had said and they seemed to think I needed to get Furball in soon. So, we have a noon appointment on Wednesday. Hopefully nothing too serious.

Animal Kingdom

I had to go back to the vet's tonight to pick up some eye drops for Reggie that weren't available during his appointment. His eyes are drier than they want, so we'll be going to the animal eye specialist once I get it set up. But tonight the adventure was about other animals.

Reggie's vets have moved to a new location further west and we'd just entered the last leg of the trip where the traffic just suddenly dissipates. Civilization and lights seem left behind and nature springs up. It was still a four-lane road, but we were surrounded by fields and chirping locusts. The smell of distant rain seeped into the car to further isolate us.

I noticed that something was curled up on the road ahead of me and slowed down just as a deer stood up. This was a little more nature than I was expecting. I wasn't in any danger of hitting the deer, but I slowed anyway. Instead of going to the closest field the deer went the other way...right in front of a car coming from the other direction. I actually yelled, "Don't hit it!" even though the driver couldn't hear me. Fortunately, the deer turned back around and trotted in front of me, which wasn't an issue as I'd stopped the car. I was only a few feet from the young deer and wanted to take a picture, but didn't have my camera with me.

I drove cautiously onto the vet's and they me told there had been a coyote on that road two nights earlier...I think we have one of those in my own subdivision.  As I walked back to the car with Reggie's drops, I felt something smack the top of my foot. I was wearing sandals and as I moved my right foot through the air...as one does when one is walking...my toes definitely came into contact with something small, cold, and slimy. I looked down and watched two small frogs blitz-hop back off the walk into the scrubs. I'd kicked a frog. Surely this is some sort of achievement; how often does one's moving foot make contact with an air-born miniature frog?

I stood there a second looking at the deserted walk. All-in-all, I decided it was far better to have kicked a frog with the top of my foot than to have stepped on it with the bottom of my shoe or to have hit a deer with my car. Even so I grabbed hand sanitizer from the car and squirted it all over my toes. I'm such a girl!

In Remembrance

Copyright: Might be The Guardian, U.K.

Zodiac (2007)

As previously mentioned, last night I watched Zodiac. I'm talking about the 2007 movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr. It's not a horror film, or even a gory film, but it is very well made and very suspenseful. Zodiac is the story of the journalists and the police officers that tried to capture California's self-named serial killer, the Zodiac. The movie received excellent reviews, but didn't do too well at the box office...probably because a bad movie about the Zodiac came out the year before.

I purposely didn't read anything about the movie or the hunt for the Zodiac killer before watching the movie, and that made it even more nerve-wracking, because I didn't know who would live or die. Although Zodiac focuses on the police and journalists, it does show a few of the murders through the point of view of survivors. These screens are worthy of Hitchcock because the suspense and fear from them carries into later scenes making you anxious about what will happen to the various characters. The journalists in particular made many stupid moves putting themselves and their families in danger of being attacked.

I recommend the movie, but be prepared to be freaked out. The acting is great and the plot keeps you involved all the way through. (I'm too tired to come up with better words to recommend the movie. Really need to stop writing my blog at 11:30 at night!) 

In the end, we still don't know who the Zodiac is or was. The movie presents one theory, but it is un-proven. Here's a theory:

   

Is it just me or are there some similarities between the men (man?) in these sketches; especially around the eyes? Is the Zodiac also Dan Cooper (a.k.a. D.B. Cooper)? You be the judge.