Feeling no pain...

"One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain."  ~Bob Marley

Here’s Olive sitting on our front porch waiting for Irene to pass.  Tropical storms and such are not the best thing for pugs who hate to go out in the rain,

delicate little princesses that they are.

We were so fortunate that it did pass and we were left with not so much as a flooded basement.  No power outages…nothing.  Just a little yard cleanup.  Some of our close-by neighbors were not so lucky since they just got their power back late yesterday.  And it breaks my heart to hear of the havoc Irene brought to beautiful Vermont and other places.  But it is past us now and time for the slow recovery.

It seems that so often after a big storm like that, there is a stretch of glorious weather.  That is the case here.  The days have been mild and sunny with low humidity.  Could that be a feeling of fall in the air?

It does give good light for photography.  I was inspired by a post by Tricia in her Bluff Area Daily blog.  Her photography is just superb and she uses great textures.  Recently, she used a music texture that I decided to copy.  So I got some old piano music books out of the piano bench and took them out on the deck to take some photos.  Originally I was just going to take a couple photos to use as textures but I got carried away when I saw one of my white roses that was on its way out. 

  This is what I ended up with.

Irene's upon us...

I’m sitting here watching the trees swaying in the wind and waiting for the storm to pass.  Irene has been downgraded to a tropical storm now so we are the lucky ones.  And we haven’t lost power yet.  For that I am very grateful.  I got my shower, my cup of coffee and checked my email.  We have friends who weren’t that lucky this morning…not to mention all the folks who don’t have power down the East Coast.  We have had LOTS of rain…a lot of rain all along.  Flooding could be an issue.

Last night Greg and I watched the Red Sox finish a double header in soaking rain.  Of course, we were watching on TV, but there were still quite a few members of Red Sox Nation sitting in the stands during that second game.   Die-hard fans or just nuts…I don’t know.  It will sure be one game they will remember for a while.  It looks like the right decision to cancel today’s game though.  It could be dangerous in Fenway Park right now.

But what gets me is all the hype about this.  My mother even called on Friday (Friday!) from Ohio wanting to know if we were going to evacuate.  Well, there was no need for that up here in central Massachusetts, but you wouldn’t know that to listen to the weather reports.   Of course, one has to proceed with caution in these circumstances but all day and all night coverage…PLEASE! Give it a rest already.

Okay.  There is my rant.  Out of the system and down the drain,

joining the flood waters and going out to sea.

Today I thought I would post a few pictures I took the other day of a birch tree that I love.  It sits down by our pond tucked a little way into the woods.  I am hoping that that location will protect it a bit from this weather as birches seem to take the brunt of the damage in storms like we are having here now.

Take care and stay safe, everyone, whether or not you are in or have been in Irene’s path or are dealing with weather issues of your own.

The calm before the storm...

So we aren’t too sure what to expect up here in New England for the next few days with Hurricane Irene.  We could get hammered or we could just escape with rain and wind.  What a crazy year we’ve had with the weather!!

But I will tell you that Wednesday night was a beautiful night for baseball in Syracuse, New York, where Greg and I went to meet our son Evan for a ballgame.  Syracuse is home to the Syracuse Chiefs, a Triple-A farm club for the Washington Nationals.  They play in a nice little ballpark. 

 

Greg went all out and got us tickets for the Home Plate Club that were in the front row behind home plate.  The seats come with wait service and pads.  We are never that spoiled at Fenway Park.  So we lived it up and had a nice time even if the Pawtucket Red Sox got beat by the Chiefs.  It was fun.

So I get to spend tomorrow (well, actually it’s today.  I just noticed that it’s past midnight…) getting stuff in just in case we need to batten down the hatches and ride out the hurricane.  But for now, here is a look at a beautiful night at the ballpark.

Greeting from Syracuse!

Future Major Leaguer.

Must be in the front row!

Famous Syracuse Salt Potatoes...not your typical ballpark fare.

"Take me out to the ballgame!"

“Oh, my ears and whiskers…”

We’ve had quite a lot of rain here lately…off and on.  This has prompted a large growth of mushrooms in our yard.  It’s a veritable mushroom forest.  I like taking pictures of mushrooms because I really like the little devils.  I know not to eat these ones in the yard.  To quote that famous philosopher Author Unknown, “All mushrooms are edible…once.”  So to be on the safe side, I bought a bunch of exotics at the grocery and we’re having mushrooms and polenta tonight for our “meatless Monday.” 

 

Mushrooms always remind me of my favorite book of all times Alice in Wonderland and lately I’ve been thinking it’s about time for me to reread it for about the tenth time.  I can’t find it on my bookshelf though so I must have loaned it to someone.  If anyone of you out there in the cloud has my copy of The Annotated Alice, please return it to me sometime.  Thanks! 

Ma, Pa and the Kid

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