Missyisms

Coldest Day in a Decade?

The forecast for today is that we won't see 0° F (-17.778° C) and it will be the coldest day in a decade. I decided to track it for history...or to make it feel even worse!!!!

At midnight:
 
That's -2° F (-18.889° C). The wind chill is a balmy -22° F (-30° C). We're off to an ugly start. And I'm off to bed to hide between the covers for hopefully several hours of sleep. Stay warm where ever you are tonight!

I forgot to check earlier, but here's the 9:45 A.M. weather check:

My newspaper is suffering down at the curb. Too bad.

 

It's a heat wave at 1:30 P.M.:

Since the sun is out in full force...I mean bright, bright, bright, but not really warm...the temp has gone up a smidge. I don't think we're going to reach a high of -2° F.

And what does this cold day look like...any other snowy, yet sunny day:

So much for the heat wave, two hours later and even though the sun is still up the temperature is going the wrong direction:

One of these years I'm going to make like a bird and move south for the winter...maybe for the whole year!

 

Dinner time blues:

If you're interested, I bet a bunch of five-star restaurants have no waiting this evening. I wouldn't order cold duck.

 

Still going down:
 
Supposedly only 14-15 hours left of this. Sigh.

And 24 hours after we started?:

We're worse off than when we started. Don't you wish you were here? After all, misery loves company. (OK, at least I still have some semblance of humor!)

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.

90,000 Lightning Strikes

We had four hours of big storms Monday night. The sky was constantly lit up with lightning. Today, the Chicago Tribune provided statistics demonstrating the storm's magnitude.

In just four hours:

• 90,000 strikes of lightening across NE Illinois Monday evening.
• 6: the number of months it usually takes to reach 90,000.
• 800 strikes per minute Monday evening.

Below is a picture submitted to the Tribune, but I couldn't find the photographer's name other than cdenamur.

Wow! Too bad I don't have a factory that could print 90,000 "I survived" t-shirts for me! (TL, I think we could create a cool t-shirt!)

What Day is This?

Silly me. I thought the calendar said today was April 28. Oops. So silly of me. It can't be April 28, it must be February 28 because is SNOWED TODAY!!!!

No, I'm not kidding. See the pictures below! Sigh. Will this winter ever end? The snow actually stuck for a while, but I had to leave before it quit snowing so I don't know how long it lasted or how covered things got.

Looks like Global Warming to me!

At first it was sort of funny, but then it was just sick. Too sickening to bother setting the camera correctly to get a great picture, but you get the idea.

Spring Abounds

Spring has sprung (FINALLY) here in the Chicago area! Last week we reached 70 degrees (21.1 C) for the first time in SIX long months. Can you imagine how wonderful that felt after this season's winter?

The birds have been serenading us this last week from dawn to dusk. I've been watching a couple of Cardinals and they seem so happy to be out and about. I hope they mate and bring lots more Cardinals to the neighborhood! ;-) We need more colorful birds around here!

This morning I was walking into a store and realized I was being stared at. I turned my head and about 15 feet away was a goose. I said "hello" as I walked by and it wagged its tail...I kid you NOT. Don't try to tell me it was coincidence! I know it was spring fever!

About 6:00 this evening I noticed two ducks sunning themselves in the neighbor's yard. I tried to take some pictures, but the battery in my camera was on it's last gasp so I don't know if they turned out.

Reggie and I had the most pleasant walk this evening...not too hot, not too cold...just wonderful. If only this weather would be our most frequent weather!

Sadly it will probably all end tomorrow, because Reggie is going to the groomers. That means we'll have at least some bad weather!

Reggie MudBucket

In today's thrilling and exciting news…surely worthy of Twitter, if I Twittered…the snow has turned to rain and thunder storms. The backyard is a mosh pit, and Reggie seems drawn to it like a rubber duck. Fun times for moi. In other words, Reggie went out this morning and got dirtier than I think he’s been in years and years. That’s saying something; something sad.

Reg didn’t stay out long his first venture out this morning, so when he asked to go out again and it wasn’t raining hard, I decided it was probably a good thing. (That use of Martha Stewart's favorite phrase should warn you of impending doom.) About two minutes after letting Reg out, the rain started to pour and I could hear thunder in the distance. I tried to get him to come in, but no, he was running around the yard chasing two squirrels from tree to tree. He’d duck under the awning for a shivering reprieve, but as soon as the squirrels would move, Reggie would charge back out through the puddles and muddy, thin, brown grass splattering water like an elephant on display. I guess he wanted to dye his fur, because he went from slate/white/black to mud. Not a good color choice in my opinion.

I tried to get him to come in, but he refused...barely sparing me a condescending glance from his stalk-the-trespassing-squirrels quest. So I left him a bit. Finally, afraid his muddy, drenched, shivering, almost-11-year-old body was going to have a heart attack, I put on a nylon jacket, a hat and gloves! and captured him. I think he was so shocked to see me trying to grab him with leather-work-gloved hands, that he was momentarily stunned, giving me the upper hand...upper gloved hand. I carried him, as anyone would carry a dirty, filthy dog...away from the body...up to his stasis chamber, the bathtub. I should have taken a picture, but I was more worried about cleaning and warming him. He was worried the squirrels were getting away.

He didn’t just get his feet rinsed or his feet washed with soap…he got a full body shampoo care of Boutique Missyisms and Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. Like most dogs, Reggie hates baths and I usually leave anything more than a spot cleaning to the groomers, but he was too muddy to let lose even in an enemy’s home. I used a watering can to help pore water all over his back and tummy to get all the soap off...dog's have sensitive skin and soap too often, too much or left on too long is a no-no. So I washed and rinsed and, rinsed again. I now know why people have children in their youths, this leaning over the tub is back pain-inducing! (Of course there are other reasons, but this was the most pertinent today.) Then, for the first time ever, I used a hair dryer on Reggie. He didn’t like the sound, but I think he enjoyed getting warm and dry quickly. He didn't enjoy any of this...nor did I...but, being a good boy, he didn't pout and was bouncing around within minutes of the hideous ordeal.

He spent about fifteen minute preening himself and prancing around till he was completely dried and comfortable. A quick five-minute nap and he was right as rain and ready to go out again. He stood at the back door, tail wagging and smiling at me. I just cackled like the evil thing that I am! He has not been back out since. Instead, he's been downstairs snoozing like a nice clean, sweet little dog. He smells nice too. That won't last long...sigh. Why won't the snow and rain leave us alone!?!?!

P.S. Lest you are wondering, the bathtub got a post-Reggie bath of its own!