“Weather is a great metaphor for life—sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, and there’s nothing much you can do about it but carry an umbrella.” ~ Pepper Giardino

“Rainstorm Over the Sea,” John Constable (1824-28, oil on canvas)

 

“a wind has blown the rain away and blown
the sky away and all the leaves away,
and the trees stand.  I think i too have known
autumn too long” ~ e.e. cummings

Satellite Image of November 11 Nor'easter

Well, we’re in the middle of a massive nor’easter here. Heavy rain and strong winds gusting up to 50 mph. Our electricity and cable were knocked out at 7:20 this morning, but the electricity is back now.

Do you want to know how I know exactly when the electricity went out? Well, it’s because I was awake.  Well who isn’t awake at 7:20 in the morning, you might ask? Normally, not me because I go to sleep so late, but you see, once again, I have not been to sleep. It’s now going on 11:30 a.m., and I have yet to close my eyes for more than 30 minutes or so. I’ve decided that I’m going to try to stay awake as long as possible so that I might be able to go to sleep later—really go to sleep. Not this minute-by-minute crap.

So I’m writing my post now, hoping that my eyes will start to get heavy soon.

I enjoy listening to a good storm. The wind chimes are playing wildly as the wind whips around and through them. Luckily, the wind gusts aren’t enough to move things about the yard. That’s always scary.

“Only those in tune with nature seem to pick up on the energy in wind.  All sorts of things get swept off in the breeze—ghosts, pieces of soul, voices unsung, thoughts repressed, love uncherished, and a thousands galore of spiritual ether . . .” ~ Drew Sirtors

Aerial View of Willoughby Spit

I remember when I used to live in Willoughby Spit a long time ago; we lived on Lea View, the last road in Willoughby, right next to the Chesapeake Bay. Willoughby Spit, as the name implies, is a neighborhood that was actually created during a hurricane. The area, which is a peninsula bordered by the Chesapeake Bay, Hampton Roads, and Willoughby Bay, is approximately 7.3 miles long. Major storms, including the huge Ash Wednesday storm of 1962, which lasted over three days, further eroded the spit.

Anyway, we (my ex and I and our dog) woke up one morning to a brutal nor’easter—so named because the winds come from the northeast, hitting the East Coast of the Atlantic U.S. and Canada. Nor’easters can cause as much and sometimes more damage than a hurricane, mostly because they can last through several tide cycles, dumping more and more water on land. Depending upon conditions, snow and/or ice can accompany a nor’easter.

What at first appeared to be another storm soon became cause for evacuation. Apparently, the storm caused a gas leak in one of the homes, and the entire neighborhood was evacuated in amphibious half-tracks. By the time we left, the water level on our cars was half-way up the doors. It was pretty incredible and more than a little frightening to watch the water continue to rise unabated.

Fortunately, no one was hurt, but many people traded in their water-logged vehicles. We, however, did not, and the floor panels of my ex’s old Toyota rusted through. One day they were there, and then our feet went through. Unlike some of our neighbors who lived on the waterfront side of the street, we did not end up driving new Saabs and Audis after the storm, but that was okay because we all made it out.

After that storm, whenever a nor’easter was forecast, everyone parked their cars out on the main road.

“No one but Night, with tears on her dark face,
Watches beside me in this windy place.” ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Image from Movie The Perfect Storm

So right now, the wind is still at work outside. In our current neighborhood, we do not border the water, but half-way around the block, the houses abut Little Bay. Our neighborhood has flooded, but nothing like what I saw in Willoughby.

Just a bit of trivia: The movie The Perfect Storm is based on the true story of the Andrea Gail, a swordfishing boat that was caught in a nor’easter in October 1991.

Earlier this morning, I spent a bit of time on the phone with my health insurance company (such a pleasant representative . . . not), and then with my pain management doctor’s office. Apparently, my health insurance was cancelled at the end of May, which is why my doctors have not been receiving payment.

Now, how can that be, you ask? Well, I don’t know. I do know that we have been paying my expensive premium each month and that someone was getting the money, but Blue Cross/Blue Shield claims that it wasn’t them. Have I mentioned lately how much I intensely dislike bureaucracies.

As a result, 13 claims have to be reprocessed, and most of those are with my pain management group. Unfortunately for me, I cannot make an appointment until some money changes hands between my provider and my insurer. This really sucks—being at the mercy of individuals who control the fate of my health and welfare. I mean, we make that payment every month by the grace period due date; as it is, I still cannot use my prescription coverage, but you would think that ADP might have wondered why I was still paying them for a policy that had supposedly been cancelled . . . you would think.

“Once more I am the silent one
who came out of the distance
wrapped in cold rain and bells:
I owe to earth’s pure death
the will to sprout.” ~ Pablo Neruda

Think being the operative word here. Anyway, more hurry up and wait, and in the meantime, my back is full of knots and spasming like a crazed Tasmanian Devil. And then there’s that little problem of not being able to fall asleep and stay asleep. I suppose it’s a good thing that I don’t have to get up and drive anywhere in the morning because I don’t know if that would be possible in my current state.

I do know that I woke up in fits and starts, one time singing (yes, singing . . .), and another time because I was certain that I had heard a rustling sound. I have no idea what I was singing or why, but I do remember scratching my chest a lot. Don’t ask me why I do any of this because I really don’t know. I mean, my personal hygiene is just fine. I think that the scratching that I do in my sleep is probably another reaction to one of my medications, but who knows which one.

One of these days, all of my medications will be straightened out. My insurance will be fixed, and I will have no problems with my doctor’s offices. I will no longer be hounded by social security, and I will be able to pay what I need to pay when I need to pay it . . . one of these days. But until then I suppose I will continue to sleep in multi-minute interludes as opposed to hours as other people are able to do, and I will continue to have wild dreams that cause me to awaken singing, scratching, and screaming.

By the way, Corey can sleep through most of this, and the dogs don’t even wake up any more.

Piano music by Yiruma: “Kiss the Rain”

 

 

More later. Peace.

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“Dreams are answers to questions we haven’t yet figured out how to ask.” ~ The X-Files

“Water Serpents II” by Gustav Klimt (detail), 1907

Random Thoughts On Nothing At All

“I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.” ~ Vincent Van Gogh

Saturday: The rain subsided today, for a while at least. I just saw on the TV ticker that severe storms are on the horizon—lightning, heavy rain, winds up to 60 mph. Can I just say that as much as I love a good storm, this whole rain thing is really getting old.

Last night (early morning), I fell asleep to the sounds of a major thunderstorm. When Corey and I first saw the bright flashes, we turned off all of the computers as we did not want a repeat of what happened a couple of years ago when a major portion of our electronics were fried in a storm. The insurance covered it, but there was a hefty deductible.

“Dreams say what they mean, but they don’t say it in daytime language.” ~ Gail Godwin

"Thunderstorm" from Albany University Dept of Atmospheric and Environmental Science

I had the strangest dream last night. Apparently, I was supposed to be getting married. One of the strange parts was that I was wearing a wedding dress around town to do my planning for the wedding. None of my friends thought to point out that this was a mistake as I had not pulled the train to the dress up, and consequently, the dress was getting filthy.

The wedding was the next day, and I had a filthy, torn dress. I went into a what was supposed to be a tailor’s shop, but the people in the shop just looked at me as if they had never seen a needle and thread. They suggested that I try the tailor down the road. Now, in those lovely leaps of logic that a dream takes, as I was going to the next tailor, I suddenly realized that the previous tailor’s shop was a front for a drug cartel, and I decided that I needed to spy on them. None of the friends who were with me disagreed with my decision, so we circled the building and snooped.

At this point in the dream, my white dress turns black, solid black, and I begin to realize that it doesn’t mattter if my dress gets a little dirty because it’s black. In the meantime, I still haven’t bought the invitations to the wedding or picked out the flowers.

All of my friends want to go to lunch, and I agree, but I remind them that we only have a few hours left to accomplish everything, at which point they remind me that it’s my own fault for procrastinating.

That’s the dream. Way too much symbolism for me. I just know that I awoke with the headache creeping around the outside of my skull, preparing to take residence in my eye.

“What I take from my nights, I add to my days.” ~ Leon de Rotrou, “Vencelas,”  (translated)

As a result, I have spent another day lying on the bed in the fetal position, whimpering, while my two Jack Russells view this as an opportunity to cuddle around me, making me too hot. Let’s face it—I’m in for the long haul with this headache. The dogs may not mind, but as with the rain, I am so completely over it.

I had wanted to begin reading Bruce Hood’s book, Supersense, but the headache is preventing any reading. I know that I have mentioned Bruce’s site and his book before, but if you have never visited and are interested in quirky topics, just click on the Supersense link under my Recommended Reading list. Trust me, it’s a great site for people like me who question everything. I’m hoping that tomorrow can be a reading day, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

I do have a couple of draft entries that I had wanted to finish and post, but they require real thought, rather than meandering around my brain and putting down whatever happens to wander by. Sometimes, though, meandering can be quite interesting, especially when your thoughts land on something that at first appears to be a complete non sequitur, as in ‘where in the hell did that come from?’

Just a short post for now. More later. Peace.