Category: Storms

THE Storm and others

Risk and Armadillos

On By SandyIn Animals, People, Storms, WeatherLeave a comment

Life is risky. No one gets out of here alive except by flaming chariot or other act of God. When we get out of bed, we take risks. We could slip in the shower or trip on the rug. We could be electrocuted by a kitchen appliance. It’s a miracle I reached this age when you consider my early life was spent without a single GFCI plug!

Each time we walk out the door, we take risks. The sun exposure we get walking outside can lead to death by skin cancer. The car we drive to work could be involved in a fatal accident. I grew up with an inordinate fear of quicksand and falling pianos. Those were the good old days.

Recently, I read some alarming posts about leprosy, also known as Hansen Disease. The rate of human infection in my state in 2025 was a record 36 cases — up from 29 in 2015. The current suspect — the armadillo. It appears that about 95% of humans have a natural immunity to Hansen Disease and/or the bacteria that cause it. It also appears that about 1 in 6 armadillos may carry that bacteria, but it is not transmitted by brief or casual contact. It takes a bit of exposure to get it.

I was born and raised here, and I can count on two hands the number of times I have seen a live armadillo in the wild. I have spent a good portion of my life tramping through the woods. Armadillos aced the class in How Not to be Seen. They are nocturnal, and they burrow. When I have seen them, it was usually by the side of the road, but more often, I’ve seen them dead on the road.

There are no reported deaths in the state or even in the U.S. from Hansen Disease. While a disease of Biblical horror, antibiotics can successfully treat it. Yet someone will inevitably make noise about killing all the armadillos or possibly clearing or draining the land where they live. People have short memories and don’t seem to recall the many times man has decided to fix a problem, and the solution proved to be catastrophic. Here’s a brief reminder – cane toads in Australia, mongoose in Hawaii, kudzu in … everywhere! (Kudzu in the U.S. is a variety developed to provide inexpensive fodder for livestock and to prevent erosion but went on to eat the South.)

While rare and difficult to contract, leprosy is serious and the increase in leprosy is worth research and monitoring. This is already being done and has been for years. While the experts come up with definitive answers and recommendations, here are some facts to consider.

Deaths by Leprosy — There have been zero deaths by leprosy (Hansen Disease) in the U.S.

Deaths by Shark Bite — Claude.ai looked at the past 10 year and came up .2 deaths per year or approximately .01 deaths per million residents in my state. When you consider that visitors to the state are about six times the resident population, it is safe to say that the rate per million people is substantially smaller.

Deaths by Alligator Bite — Approximately 1 fatality per year and .04 deaths per million residents. Alligator mouths are full of bacteria, so sepsis is common. Same caveat about visitors, who likely are less informed about sharks and alligators than are residents.

Deaths by Lightning — Down from 10 per year to 4 per year or .17 per million. I have apps on my phone that tell me when lightning is within 20 miles of me. They send notifications every afternoon in summer. During meetings. It’s annoying, but education may be saving lives.

Deaths by Melanoma —600 deaths per year or 26 per million in my state. This does not count deaths by non-melanoma skin cancers.

Deaths by Vehicular Accident — 3,184 deaths per year or 136 per million. Caveat about visitors applies.

Deaths by Heart Disease — 50,000 deaths per year or 2,137 per million

You could almost certainly avoid deaths by leprosy, shark bite, alligator bite, lightning, melanoma, and vehicular accident by never walking outside your door. But the risk of all of those together is less than 1/10th the risk of death by heart disease. So don’t let fear rule your life. Go outside. Enjoy nature. Be heathy and active.

If while enjoying fresh air, exercising, and absorbing Vitamin D, you are fortunate enough to see a live armadillo, do not hug it. Do not pet it. Do not give it a kiss. Do not hunt it. Do not eat it. He is not your enemy. He is not your pet or your food.

Please leave the poor armadillos in peace. Their lives are hard enough.

Note: I asked Claude.ai to come up with the figures. He provided links. I read some but not all to verify. If you don’t believe the statistics, please do your own research. It’s Sunday. I’m taking it easy.







.

Snow Day

On By SandyIn Faith, Growing Older But Not Up, Storms, WeatherLeave a comment

The excitement has been building for days. Forecast models began showing the possibility of snow across the Gulf Coast. I have been dreaming of experiencing a really good snow since I was a little girl. I wanted White Christmas complete with sleigh bells. I wanted to build a snowman, to ride on a sled, to throw a snowball, and make snow angels. Every corny Christmas movie scene was attractive to me, and I wanted to experience it all — just once. But as the decades rolled by, I was becoming resigned to the fact that I probably would not.

MyTallerHalf (MTH) is less enthralled with snow than I am. He has seen it. He has experienced it. The sound of snow crunching under his feet sets his teeth on edge. Be sure to make the snow angel first thing, warning me by his tone that it is the last thing I should do. Apparently, they never tell you in the movies that the snow melts, and your back ends up cold and wet.

Our dog shares MTH’s sentiments. I had imagined her barking and leaping to catch snowflakes on her tongue. Instead, she did her level best to avoid any contact with them. Not everyone sees the wonder.

I have been glued to James Spann’s YouTube channel, worried about my citrus trees and the strawberries I had just planted, yet expectant. Day by day, it seemed more certain that it would snow clear down to the beaches. At first, it was half an inch, then one inch, then two. When they reported an improbable six to eight inches, the excitement was palpable.

Yesterday afternoon, it began. It started with a few flakes so small they reminded me of dandruff. I am not completely new to snow. I have seen a few flurries. I remember it snowing in Orlando in 1977. It melted when it hit the ground, but I made a tiny snowman on my mother’s car. I was in college during Snow Jam ’82. The amount of snow on campus was disappointing, but Atlanta was shut down for days. I have seen snow in Montreal when I visited a cabane à sucre with friends. A few flakes fell, and there were mounds of dirty snow frozen solid along the edges of streets and paths. No snow angels, snowmen, or snowball fights were to be had, though we did ride in a wagon pulled by a horse with sleigh bells. That was lovely.

The snow kept coming, faster and harder, with fat flakes easily seen. At first, they dusted the ground, then there were patches of white, and after a couple of hours, there was a proper blanket of snow across our yard. It was so quiet. So perfect. The snow continued to fall.

The world was not completely silent. The birds were frantic. They seemed to sense the oncoming storm and continued to chirp and to empty our feeder as the snow fell. Neighbors, young and not so young, trampled the snow in the street in front of our house. Occasionally, the silence was interrupted by sounds of conversations, laughter, or an excited shout. Some had never seen snow in their lives. Some were reminiscing of past snows. There were no traffic sounds. Everything closed for the storm.

It was still snowing when I went to bed. When I woke up in the middle of the night, it was no longer snowing, but the ground was a thick blanket of white. Inside, it was cozy and warm. Outside, our lilies were covered in snow. MTH said it looked like 4-6″, and that seems about right. It will be a cold day. The snow will not melt right away. I thought of snowmen, snowballs, and snow angels. These are things I will probably not experience in my life, but I am content.

I experienced a really good snow, in Pixley, no less, and like every good and perfect gift, I know it came from our Father. I am still smiling, and I am sure He is smiling, too.

A Little Romance

On By SandyIn Love, Storms5 Comments

Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.

C. S. Lewis

Our third-anniversary approaches, so I guess it is time to share the story of how My Taller Half and I came to be.

My youngest child graduated high school a couple of months before I moved to Pixley. I had planned to leave the city I had lived in for fourteen years for a place that was quieter and more affordable. Unfortunately, the friend who was planning to drive the moving truck for me had conflicts, and I was without a driver only six weeks from the move.

I am nothing if not resourceful. I had noticed that a friend from a social media site mentioned on his profile that he drives a truck. We grew up in the same approximate area but several years apart. We both frequented state history pages and political pages. We had messaged a few times, very platonic chats, but that was the extent of our relationship. I needed help, so I decided to take a leap. “Can you really drive a truck?”

“Yes, why?”

“Would you be willing to do me a favor?”

Understand that, at the time, MTH lived in a larger city a couple of hours away. We had never met in person or even had an in-depth conversation. But he agreed to drive the truck. Problem solved.

I enjoyed a few moments of relief before the anxiety set in. I didn’t really know this guy, yet I was inviting him to come to our apartment to help with the move, to be around my stuff, my adult children, and me. So for the next six weeks, along with work, packing, and a trip to Pixley to work on the house, I pestered him daily. I wanted to know all I could about him. He wasn’t used to long messages or online conversations. He usually ended our chats with, “Go away, child.”

I learned a lot about his life. We talked about music. We reminisced about life in the area in the 30, 40, 50 years earlier. He told me about the long battle with illness that nearly took his life. We talked about the faith we shared in Christ. I knew I annoyed him with my constant questions, but you can never be too careful. I may have worked into the conversation how I have a concealed weapons permit and was a practiced shot.

The move was a bit of a disaster. I wasn’t as prepared as I should have been. Things didn’t fit on the truck the way I believed they would. My kids and I worked hard to get things together, and MTH helped put some order in the chaos. I felt awful. He hadn’t signed on for anything but driving, but he seemed to enjoy himself. My daughter and her friend were convinced he was sweet on me. They “shipped us.” I was pretty certain he wanted to throttle me.

A mixup with the appliance delivery had me abandoning them for the house. My youngest and MTH headed up later with the truck. We unloaded and then headed out to deliver the truck to the rental office. After a very long drive back to MTH’s place, I headed back to Pixley. I had to work the next day.

A day or so later, a planter with flowers arrived at my door, a housewarming gift from my friend. We had gotten in the habit of daily chats, and these didn’t stop after the move. A few weeks later, I drove my youngest to college in the same town where MTH lived. We met for lunch before I headed back to Pixley.

A couple of months after moving to Pixley, The Big Storm hit. I was alone, so MTH stayed on the phone with me, chatting with me, teasing me, distracting me, and praying with me while huge trees outside my window rocked. Then the phone went out, and he had no idea what had happened. The storm deserves its own story, so I will just say that I was without a car for three days, without a phone for four days, without power for six days, and without internet for a month. I telecommute. After about a week of working from Panera in another state, I accepted the offer of some good friends of mine to come to stay with them and use their internet. So I began working there during the week, heading back home for the weekends. My friends live about 30 minutes from MTH’s old place. We all got together for meals occasionally. It was during these little visits that the ritual of the flashlights began.

Not long after the internet was restored, I was scheduled for surgery. My kids were all busy, and I had no one to help me after the surgery. MTH rode over two hours on a bus to meet me for the surgery and to tend to me afterward. Then there were the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners that we shared with my family at a restaurant in the city where he lived because two of my kids were living there. He also invited me to a big family gathering in honor of his niece’s birthday. These weren’t dates. We never actually dated. We were friends whose time together involved meals and errands.

After the holidays, there was a bit of a lull. I didn’t see my son again until Spring Break. Not long before I was scheduled to pick my son up, I was chatting with MTH online, when he wrote, “So, do you think Pastor X should do our pre-marital counseling?”

I had to read and re-read that a few times.

“Did you just propose?

“Well, I think he would be a good choice.”

“It isn’t a proposal until you ask me to marry you in person.”

When I picked up my son for Spring Break, we met MTH for lunch. No proposal. Maybe he was kidding?

When I took my son back to school after Spring Break, we all met for lunch. Unbeknownst to me, he asked my youngest son for my hand while I was distracted by a call. I had to drive MTH back to his house before heading back to Pixley, but he needed to stop to get cat food. In the pet food aisle of my favorite grocery store, which also happened to be a convenient, air-conditioned spot, MTH pretended to find a ring box on the shelf and asked me to marry him.

Reader, I married him. Three months later, and about a year from the time I asked him if he would help drive that moving truck, we married in his church using the liturgy from my church, in the company of our families and dear friends, some of whom we also met online. Over the next few weeks, My Taller Half, along with his rescue cats, settled into our little home.

I don’t really know how it happened. MTH and I are an unlikely pair. He rescues cats. I’m a dog person. When I was 17, I was a nerd on the Brain Bowl team at my high school. When he was 17, he had been living on his own for years, traveling all over the country, doing any number of jobs, and spending an inordinate amount of time at rock and roll shows, giving very short girls a better view of the stage from his shoulders. It helps to be 4’31” tall, but he professes that he thought he was bulletproof at the time and wishes he had taken better care of his spine. (He has drawn up plans in his mind that will allow anyone to give the vertically-challenged a fair chance to see the stage without injuring a backbone. Look for the Kickstarter some time in the next 1-30 years!)

As I grew to know him, I grew to love my gruff, tender-hearted friend who rescues animals, gives me flashlights and pocket knives, calls to check on me while I make long drives so that I don’t get lost, and who prayed with me during The Big Storm. He will pray with me through all life’s storms until death do us part. I still irritate him, and he still occasionally says “Hush, child,” but we are happy. Life together is an adventure .. even in Pixley.

Of Cartwheels and Carts

On By SandyIn Growing Older But Not Up, StormsLeave a comment

About thirty years ago, I was walking along the beach with a friend. As we walked and reminisced, I got it into my head that I should do a cartwheel. After all, I had been able to do them easily when I was young. My mind remembered how to do it, how it felt. So I tried it, and I discovered that while my mind might remember how, my body did not. Years, pounds, and babies had changed things. It did not go well. Everything hurt, and I learned a valuable lesson. I might think I can do a cartwheel, but I cannot.

This afternoon, I had finished loading my car with groceries and put the cart in the corral. There was a tornado warning and a severe thunderstorm warning for our area, and I had a long drive ahead of me. I was organizing things in the car when I saw a cart, probably my cart, rolling quickly towards a shiny black pickup truck. I didn’t think. I dashed. Or, at least, I tried to dash. My brain told my body to move quickly to stop that cart. My upper body responded, and I leaned into it, arms pumping, trying to catch the cart. My legs and feet said, We’re sorry, but this service is unavailable at this time.

I realized too late, when my body was heading toward a 45-degree angle with the ground, that I can no longer dash. At that point, my goal was no longer to save the truck but to avoid a pavement facial. Somehow, probably with angelic assistance, I managed to stay upright long enough to catch the cart, inches from the truck, and then to catch my balance. As I turned back to the cart corral, all the other carts were blowing toward me. A woman who witnessed the whole thing looked at me in shock.

I thought you were going to face plant.
`
So did I.

I’m so glad you didn’t.

So am I.

By the time I got into my car, my lower back, my neck, my right calf, and my right shoulder were aching from whatever they did to keep me from landing on my face, and I was reminded once again that I can’t do all the things I think I can.

The drive home was uneventful. The three turtles weren’t on their branch. The water is too high. The storms have mostly passed, and now we have nothing but cooler weather ahead of us. My entire body hurts, but it could have been much worse, so I am content. Growing older isn’t easy, but it is better than the alternative!





First Breakfast

On By SandyIn Doing things differently, Food, Love, Sickness, Storms2 Comments

My Taller Half and I are both under the weather. No, it’s not COVID. It’s just aging or genetics or paying the price for past carelessness. Normally, we’d be in the Bigger City to the south, listening to our pastor preach a great sermon. After church, we’d do our regular Bigger City stock up run to all our favorites stores, grab some lunch, then head home for a nice nap. But we haven’t made that trip for a few weeks, and while we still have The Pig and Wally World nearby, it’s just not the same.

MTH fixes breakfast most mornings, so I decided it was my turn this morning. He likes his eggs on the softer side, while I’m the kid Ron Popeil envisioned when he invented his In-the-Egg Scrambler. One compromise we both enjoy is a scrambled egg concoction in my cast iron skillet. It’s a bit like a crustless quiche. Into the skillet go the vegetables, chopped meats, whatever I have or need to use, which I usually sauté, then I pour in the egg mixture and top with cheese. I pop that into the oven until it is firm and the cheese is melted.

But without shopping much lately, the cupboard is getting a little bare. We have mushrooms — always a good start — some shallots and some garlic. I could cook up some frozen broccoli, but my personal energy reserves were a bit low, so if there wasn’t any ready to go, it wasn’t going to happen. We have some sausage and maybe a few slices of bacon, but again, too tiring. We have an open jar of sun-dried tomatoes — into the pan they went. It would be good, but it really needs meat to be perfect. The sun-dried tomatoes had me thinking Mediterranean, those blue waters off the coasts of Greece or Italy I’ve seen in pictures. In the pantry, I found a can of sardines.

My dad used to eat sardines out of the can when I was a kid. It grossed me out. He also used to eat Vienna Sausages out of the can. Dad was in the Navy through two wars. It hardens a man … and his stomach. The only canned fish I ever buy is tuna and occasionally salmon. But one day, MTH came home with cans of smoked oysters and smoked fish.

“Here,” he said, shoving a fork bearing an unknown substance toward my mouth. I obeyed. We’re still practically newlyweds, so I give him a lot of leeway. It was some sort of fish, and it was good!

“What is it?”

“Smoked herring,” he told me, and I promptly forgot.

So the next time I was in the canned fish aisle, I tried to remember. What was it? It wasn’t anchovies, the little fishes that people put on pizza. Sardines? Yes, It must be sardines. So I brought MTH home a can of sardines, informing him that I bought more of the fish he enjoyed. “Those are sardines. We had smoked herring.” Sigh.

So this morning, with my head full of visions of fisherman on the Mediterranean, I spied the little can of sardines. How bad could it be? So into the pan, along with the sizzling mushrooms, shallots, garlic, and sun-dried tomatoes, I added the sardines. They looked pretty good! I poured in the eggs scrambled with seasonings, topped it all with some shredded white cheddar, popped it into the oven, and started the coffee.

When I presented it to MTH, he looked a bit skeptical. He took a bite, then asked for a napkin.

“Are you going to spit it out?”

He mimicked gagging into his napkin then chuckled. “No, silly.”

I tried a bite. “I would definitely make this again. It’s good.” I looked at him, trying to read his opinion. He’s hard to read.

“It is good. Especially the sun-dried tomatoes.”

“I’ll add more next time.”

MTH humphed in agreement.

“I think it will keep well for lunch. I’ll eat the rest later.”

“I will, too.” It is a lot of food, and we’re not at our best. Second breakfast.

After breakfast, our phones started sending weather alerts. A tropical storm is heading our way. I am not too concerned. After our breakfast, we’re ready for anything.

Preferably a nap.