I’m kind of expecting the next couple of days to bring an entirely different reaction:  “You moved from Texas?  Ah!  Then you’re used to hurricanes!”

Folks… when I look around our fabulously beautiful new home and its surroundings, my one and only thought is…. OMG!  A hurricane would be an unmitigated disaster here.

Not only are we effectively living in a forest, we have a glass house — huge banks of windows, many skylights, and a solarium to boot!    Taken altogether, this is not conducive to passive thought when eye-balling a hurricane cruising up the east coast.

Happily, we’re not going to have a problem near as I can tell.

Current predictions have us just outside the probability cone — the ever-changing best guess of where a hurricane will pass directly.  As everybody knows, though, predictions change right up until a hurricane has already passed.  (Think Rita.)

What people often forget about those probability cones, though, is that they’re modeling the passage of the center of the storm, but there’s no magic wall between the outside of that track and the rest of the world.  Outside the cone means lesser-intensity winds, not a calm sunny day.

Hurricanes are enormous storms (CNN).

Because of Earl’s size, effects of the storm are expected to be widely felt. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 90 miles (150 kilometers) from the center, and tropical storm-force winds up to 200 miles (325 kilometers).

So… Earl passing to our east should mean we’ll have wind here — possibly a real gale.  And lots of rain.

Ha!

Weather dot com says we might have winds of 18 mph on Saturday (barely a breeze!).  Thank goodness we’re not in Katy anymore.  Here, nobody’s talking about evacuating.  I’m not even sure anybody realizes there’s a storm out there at all.

Which is just as well… cuz there’s no chance we could ever board all of this.

Myself, I’m just hoping all the leaves stay on the trees, because if this heat ever breaks, we’re going to have a spectacular show.

And we’re going to watch it through all this glass.

My puffy eyes and foggy brain are a direct result of Adorable Child’s New School Anxiety, manifesting as nightmares every night.  In the latest installment, her school was somehow bombed and only she survived.

::shudder::

And the heat’s not helping.  The current high temperatures (96 for the next three days!?!?!) make for uncomfortable sleep anyway.

This, though, is the last week.  School finally gets underway in a couple days, and these particular demons will be exorcised.  No more fears that nobody will like her, or that she’ll humiliate herself on the first day.

I expect that Thursday night will also be a bad one, since that’s the night before her first varsity game… but after that, she’ll be off and running.

And I’ll be sleeping.

I hope.

Is it really only five years?

Amazing to me that this date nearly slipped by without my realizing the significance.  But half a decade and 2000 miles have intervened, and now my world is centered on a very ill mother, a teenager starting high school this week, and a husband who’s trying to hold us all together.

So when the phone rang this evening, I was totally unprepared.

“Hello?  Is this Polimom?”

On the other end of the line was one of the selfless people who helped run the Algiers forums — handled queries, responded to crises, and gave frightened and worried people some solace after the storm.

She was calling, she said, because she was thinking of me today.   She wanted to say Thank You.

Amazing.

I hope she reads this post, because although we chatted about the current state of the city and a bit about our lives, I never did say what I wanted.  I was too off-kilter.

Too late now, maybe, but … Thank you for the call — and thank you, too, for stepping up all those years ago and helping hold the center together in the face of insanity and incredible stress.

And thank you for bringing it all back for me.

Yes, this is Polimom.  I’m still here.

**smile**

*deep breath*

Something’s changed the last few days with Goldenrod.  She’s MUCH much weaker, she’s suddenly sleeping a great deal, and she seems to have lost interest in any of the things she enjoyed doing — or at the very least, she hasn’t the energy.

Only a week ago, she drove to the fire station to play dominoes and Scrabble for 3 hours.  This is a bit abrupt…. but I don’t really want to talk about that.  Rather, I want to tell you about the morning.

It was a spectacular morning.  Stunning!  Not quite cool enough to be called “crisp”, but certainly it was fresh and bright.

So I wanted to take Goldenrod down to the pond.

It isn’t just that she hadn’t yet seen it in the almost two months she’s been here, either (and it’s right there!!).  It’s that I’m starting to feel a sense of urgency.

It’s beautiful.  She loves beautiful things… and this is a spectacular place.  I really want her to see some of it.

And so we did.

For the record:  it’s an adventure driving through a rocky New Hampshire pasture, but it was well worth it.  (Wish I’d remembered to bring a pillow, though, for her backside!)

We had a lovely visit.  I can’t begin to tell you how very wonderful it was.

I showed her the Cedar Waxwings, and where the girls camped out last month.  We talked about the polliwogs, and how very low the water levels are.

When I asked to take her picture, she gave me a great big smile.

And when it was time to go back, she was too weak to get up.

So I guess this is a good news, bad news kinda post.  The bad news is obvious — but the good news is that she was able to take in a glorious morning.

And wait!  There’s more!

She knows that I’m writing this, and she asked me to give her best to all of you who’ve been asking about her.  She loves you all.

And she knows that she should have probably said something quite a long time ago about what she suspected about her health, but she really wanted to make that trip to see everyone without a cloud hanging over.  I’m still amazed that she made that drive, actually, but I’m very glad she did.

Just like I’m glad she came down to the pond with me this morning.

It looks like a sandpiper to me, but I thought they were beach birds.

Anybody?

Update:  This is, I believe, a Solitary Sandpiper.  Cool!

Consider:  weathermen are very often wrong with their predictions.  Likewise, my mother’s doctor was unwilling to answer the question, “How long do I have to live?” with any specificity.  It seems that often, their predictions are also incorrect… and he’s the first one to admit it.

About the best he could give was survival percentages for certain time ranges, i.e.:  less than 10% survive for five years… or even for one year.   Conversely, mom could also be here with us for another 2 or 3 years.

To me, it sounds just like a 30% chance of rain, and a 30% chance of sun, forecast for the same day.

Did you know that hummingbirds migrate?  Or that their average lifespan is ~3 years? That’s what this site says… at least, about Ruby-Throats.

With that info. in mind, you’ll understand why I choose to think I’ve seen these particular visitors before.

I don’t normally shoot hummers on / at a feeder.  They (the feeders) just aren’t photogenic enough… particular compared to, say, duranta.  Or bee balm — which we have in abundance.

The light on the feeder yesterday, though, was interesting.  We were gray and overcast (practically the first time all summer), and although I had to crank the ISO WAYYYY up, it made for a couple of decent shots.

You can view my complete hummingbird gallery here (click).  Next year, I’ll get them in the bee balm.

**smiling**

Funny, but I always thought goldenrod was the source of all those red eyes and runny noses one sees this time of year.  Turns out (according to Wikipedia) that the late-summer culprit is another bloomer altogether.

That’s a good thing for us, since we have goldenrod all over the place.

Apt, and also ironic, since the online Goldenrod has been on my mind a great deal lately… but unlike these showy bits of flowering sunshine, the human Goldenrod is not blooming.

She’s failing.

I’ve been mentally wrestling with myself for days, trying to decide whether to write about this or not.  After all, she’s frequently online, and she may very well read this.

But Goldenrod is not just another online personae;  she’s my mother.  And although I don’t know how much I’m going to feel like writing in the days and weeks to come, I do know that I’m going to need an outlet now and again.

Just as well nobody reads this blog anymore.

I hope she understands.

What a place!!!   Just sitting on the screened porch, I could feel myself detoxing.  Gonna have to make absolutely sure, though, that those screens are perfectly maintained.  Lots of mosquitoes.  And fireflies.  And dragonflies.  And owls.   And frogs — LOTS of frogs — so many that conversation is tough on that porch at night.

And flowers.

And trails throughout the woods…  which will mean lots of trail maintenance.  I suppose I’ll need to learn to handle a chainsaw, eh?

Meanwhile, back at the (TX) ranch, things have gotten a tad chaotic, and there’s very little motivation now to deal with it.  We’re going to start boxing now, and pull the move schedule forward a couple of weeks.

Peace is calling me. It’s time to go.

And as so often happens with teens, the conversation went in an unexpected direction.

AC’s Friend:  Yeah, I really liked Adam Lambert’s voice, until I found out… well… you know…

Polimom:  You mean, because he’s gay?

AC’s Friend:  Yeah!  I mean… gross!

Polimom:  So… his voice sounds different to you now?  You don’t think he sings as well as he did before you knew?

AC’s Friend:  Well, no… but….   Jeez, I hate when conversations go like this…!

I’ve heard that you’re not supposed to lecture young teens or make them feel bad about their opinions — that doing so will reduce their trust in you and keep them from talking in the future.

Polimom:  [Silence]

Bwahahaha!!!  Parenting’s fun sometimes, yes?