Underpants

I am always prepared.

It is in my oldest-child nature.

So it should come as no surprise that when confronted with a tornado watch I know what to do, what paraphernalia to have nearby and how to relax (breathe in, breathe out).

You see, I was in a Category 5 tornado. April 3rd, 1974. Around 5 PM. Caught totally unawares. Mom and me and Jason. Freaked me way the hell out. The half mile wide vortex swirling trees, houses, cars and popping electric lines like toothpicks heading my way.

Scared me out of my ever lovin' mind. Swing low, sweet chariot coming for to carry me home. And all. Thought I was a goner. Me and the maids from the apartment complex I was visiting. Huddled in a heap by the elevator doors in the lobby. Knowing that sweet Jesus was headed our way to bring us into the glory. Not me. I'm Jewish. But there's a certain comfort in travelling with a god-fearing crowd.

Over in less than a minute. The sky came tumbling down. But thank the lord not on our heads. Or Mom's and Jason, our epilepsy-afflicted yellow Lab. Him of the golden fleece. Our Gran Torino wagon none the worse for wear. Just some sticks under the tire hubs. Driven in by the raging winds.

So from that point onward ... for around two years ... I always carried a transistor radio and a flashlight in my purse. Just in case. Not too sure how they would help. Or keep me safe, but they were standard fare none-the-less. That and underpants.

Once I went through the phobia clinic at Mass General in Boston I was cured. No longer fearful of white cumulous clouds in a clear blue sky that could turn nastily in a moment's notice into blue-black anvil shaped wall clouds. Now that took some drugs and a bit of Clockwork Orange behavior mod. But it worked.

I even moved proactively to Oklahoma to meet my demons. Tornado Allie, c'est moi!

What does all this have to do with panties? I'll tell you:

The weather radar on television in the New York City area is brillant red. The storms are heating up. Overactive. A tornado watch has alerted the tri-state area of large hail, high winds, microbursts ... and [drum roll] ... a possible tornado.

So I did what any girl in love would do (read: wearing nothing but a gorgeous silk negligee) ...tie a a pair of panties to the spaghetti strap of my gown. To be fully prepared. Just in case the winds should huff and puff and blow the house down and I'd find myself on the lawn bare assed.

And, that's the truth!

Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On

The planet is in need of an adjustment.

We'll skip the attitude one for now. That is way overdue. And is by my account the real culprit. Not enough energy to tackle that issue on this gorgeous sunny morning on the southern coast of Maine. Save that topic for later. Not.

No. I'm talking about getting planet earth to a chiropractor. And not just any ol' one will do. I am referring to an honest to god, god of chiropractic medicine. A DC. We have a subluxation dysfunction going on here.

Question to self: What's with all that jargon? D. C. = District of Columbia. The primo topic I am steering clear of on this mild spring day. I see a stroll on the beach in my very near future. If I can publish this post in the next 30 minutes. Not in the least on point.

The one whose office is equipped with the requisite ergo-dynamically designed leather upholstered table. You know the one I mean. Yes that one. The original one. The one that does a full tilt to 180° so you can hobble in folded over like the Hunch Back of Notre Dame, painfully pull your screeching with pain self over to the smiling man behind the screen, align yourself with the fully vertical wall. And, with the flip of a crank be lowered into position. Might even work for other things! You know what I am saying. Right? But hey, this is PG rated day for god's sake. My neighbors three children are playing frisbee across the street.

So where was I? Oh yes. In the first four months of 2010 840 quakes have been registered around the globe. Eight hundred and forty with magnitudes greater than 5. We know the big ones. But knowing the others makes me a bit more than nervous. Major activity recorded all over: Japan, Chile, Haiti, Southern California, Mexico's Baja Peninsula. And to wreak more havoc with my nerves, it was announced this week that New England is on a major, kinda inactive fault line. And, we're due. Scary.

Plus there are nine active volcanoes. All at the same time. Four in Russia. One of which erupted this week sending a 22,000 foot plume of ash into the skies. Not that I'd ever book a trip on Aeroflot. One in Hawaii. Another on Montserrat off the coast of South America. Indonesia. An island in the South Pacific. And we all know about the one in Iceland.

The Teutonic plates holding this fragile home of ours in play. No wonder we are in a heightened orange level all the time. The big guy is pissed. We should change it to red.

And what's with these mudslides and avalanches. This girl is not sure footed these days anyway.

To ice on the cake ... wild and woolly weather is screaming across Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado. Thirty-one tornadoes ... big freakin' twisters ... touched down. The storm chasers didn't know which way to turn. And I thank my lucky stars not to be hovering in the tiny, claustrophobic laundry room next to the empty double garage which would suck me into the whirling vortex from my cellarless house on the edge of the prairie.

Earth to Alice. Come in, please. I get it. The message is loud and clear. Mother Nature has her panties in a wad. Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

Glad I prefer my martinis shaken, not stirred. Maybe there is a silver lining to those green-black swirling funnel clouds after all. Cheers!

Ten Things I Hate About ...

... this freakin' weather!

1. Average rainfall in March is a little over 4 inches. This month we have gotten 22 inches of precipitation, two days remain and the forecast is not good.
2. Standing water between my yard and my fortunate neighbor who winters on Florida's West Coast is attracting Mallards pleasing Bailey, but duck poo is floating there, too.
3. Despite my healing knee, there are no walks, even short jaunts, around my lovely neighborhood.
4. In fact, I am unable reach the partially submerged Chippendale bench in the corner of my yard to bask in the milder spring air and contemplate things while Bailey sniffs her haunts.
5. My basement (and the many things stored down under) smell perpetually of mildew that Lysol and Febreze and the dehumidifier are not concealing.
6. And worse, is growing a rubbery white science experiment in the space beneath the winding narrow wooden stairs worthy of Mrs. Andrews 10th grade biology class.
7. My two sump pumps are working overtime and the submersible pump and the Wet-Vac are required to sop up the overflow.
8. Speaking of the Wet-Vac, emptying 8 gallons of sloshing water in the slop sink by the washer and dryer is a major effort.
9. Bailey has smelled like a wet dog for weeks. Keeps wanting to go outside to bark at the ducks. And to top it off: her breath stinks!
10. I'm so bored I want to spit which would only add to the precipitation and not befit my ladylike demeanor. Oh what the hell.

At least it's not snow! Cheers.

Dutch Treat

Today I am a happy camper. Despite the bum right knee. My special discovery makes even the pain of limping across my lawn bearable. Even the poopy chore of removing Bailey's toilette debris from the back yard. Out of the corner of my eye ... on the giant bed under the spruces and towering walnut tree was the most amazing surprise. Voilà!

Guess what is peeking up through that recently de-winterized, untangled plot? Where last weekend's four hour rake extravaganza removed dead fallen evergreen needles piled inches high, branches from the trees bordering my property and those gangly two-foot long yellowed ribbons from last summer's tiger lilies? In the blank space in front of the distinctive ruffled shoots emerging like clockwork that soon will sprout zillions of buds. Those large, showy reddish orange tiger lilies that grow like weeds in the New England sandy soil.

No. Not those. More special. To me anyway.

Tender green shoots barely 1/2 inch tall poking tentatively from the pine mulch. That's right! Variegated tulips striated with tinges of peach on fields of white the green vein reaching to the tip of their lovely fringed petals. Sole survivors of a red squirrel ravaged buffet feast.

I had failed miserably. Bulb planting 101, obviously not my forté in the sandy Maine soil where squirrels run amok. In that October a few years ago when 144 of the largest yellow jonquils and a dozen Green Wave Parrot tulips ordered direct from Holland were planted lovingly by my very own hands. Less than ten daffodils bloomed. Zero tulips. No feathery-petaled blooms which would slowly change to rosy pink, embraced with emerald-green arms. Nary a one. Utter failure.

Yes. I dug the hole with the requisite conical spade, twisted just so and gently dropped each bulb right side up seven inches below the ground. Added a bit of bone meal for nourishment and nutrition. And waited patiently for each of the past three summers for their glorious flowers. But hey. Those damn vermin. Munched on this delectable smorgasbord. Ruining my chances of having these most gorgeous fresh cut tulips accessorized my color-coordinated Brunschig et Fils decorated living room.

Treasured tulips were not to be. Not here. My garden, when I had even the tiniest plot of land, festooned with these delightful blossoms in early summer. Fresh flowers. A cutting bed of delights.

Frustration and disappointment mounted. Cognitive dissidence. Buyer's remorse. Each precious bulb a small fortune. A barren harvest. Unable to amortize the cost. Much less derive psychic income - pleasure. My very own tulipmania. Mad as a hatter. Obsessed. As frenzied as mid-17th century Dutch buying and selling tulip futures in the canal houses that lined the banks of Amsterdam. Poof. My investment gone awry.

But this year would be different. A sweet surprise when most needed to lift my sagging spirits. Vindicated. Those smarmy little buggers didn't have their way with my treasures after all.

Cheers to fresh cut tulips in my favorite Baccarat vase this summer!

(Ac)Counting On An Early End To Winter

It's 7 o'clock and still twilight. Lovely this early daylight savings. Only thing is ... the temperature dropped thirty degrees in one day. Throughout the house clunky radiators, quiet for nearly a week, hiss and spit steam. Brrr. Must remember it is still winter in northern New England. Planting time two months out. Not until after Mother's Day up here. Pity. The past few days of warm sunshine, nothing but a tease. But hey ... this girl can take a joke so bring it on.

May be jinxing the whole early spring thing. Snow tires off tomorrow. A bit early, but the car also needs an oil change. Efficient time management. Risky perhaps. I should know. It can snow until what seems like summer everywhere in the country. March blizzards occur frequently. Sometimes later.

So you can imagine the surprise, no total shock, to awaken early the morning of May 10, 1977 leap out of my bed for my much dreaded accounting final, throw open the yellowing rollup shades to find that a fluke spring storm dumped 8 inches of the white stuff. My snazzy Fiat 128 Special (that's Fix It Again, Tony), the one that the Chevron station at the corner of Huron and Concord jump-started every morning courtesy of AAA and a faulty choke ) was shrouded. And the test was at 9 sharp. Two hours of pure panic ensued.

Metro Boston roads and highways were snarled. Jonquils were a'bloom peeking from under inches of fluff. Trees cracked and branches toppled to the ground. The wet snow too weighty for winter weary limbs bursting with newborn lime green leaves. Everywhere the streets were blocked. Yikes. No broadcast announcements of any kind for school closings. Or at least not for Babson. No cell phones so once you were out there. You were out there. My exam was on. Drove the seventeen miles from the grey, asbestos shingled Cambridge double-decker apartment on Tierney Street to the Wellesley Hills campus circumnavigating roadblocks and fallen limbs.

Debits, credits, T-charts and accrued depreciation rules swirled inside my head. Crammed there until the words "Pencils out. Begin" were uttered. The slightest provocation prior to that unique moment in time would have tempted their flow prematurely into the stratosphere. I had to take that test. Quick. Or, horrors, my over-stuffed brain teeming with GAAP would melt releasing the gobbledy-gook into the universe.

I arrived haggard and late. Slid into an unplowed parking space, gathered my canvas LLBean bag with trusty HP-22, two Pentel mechanical .5MM pencils and a white eraser and ran at top speed into Horn Library. It was empty. Totally devoid of activity. Out of the corner of my eye I spied my professor heading out the door. Begging and cajoling teetering on the verge of quiet hysteria somehow he agreed to allow me to sit for the exam unproctored. But I had to pledge my first born if I breathed its contents to anyone.

So it happens. A burst of spring followed by winter's wrath. Only I pray not this year.

Cheers to the weather gods ...

In the Weeds

OK. Now I know why condos and coops are preferable to home ownership. I can hear the lawn mowers and hedge clippers from afar. Drifting in my windows generally interrupting my thoughts. Swarms of men armed with rakes and hoes and clippers and their ride-ons parked neatly on their open-back pickups.

These men migrate up from agrarian Latin America following the crops and the season. New England in the summers. The truck pulls up and like Barnum & Bailey Keystone Cops zillions emerge undaunted on the steamiest afternoon broiling in the hot sun. Straw hats and mesh tank tops. Or, in the pouring rain just to stay on schedule. Same outfit.

Condo dwellers don't need to make frequent shopping sprees to Home Depot or Lowes. No need to own yard tools. Or mulch. Or topsoil. Or seed. Absolutely no clutter. No need for a garage. A tool shed. Nada. Easy living. Just park my Volvo in the lot, smile and saunter up to the front door ... weather be damned.

But noooooooo. Not now. Coffers dwindling precipitously. My curb appeal needing to stay tidy. After all my antique village home is on walking tours and in plain view. Impecunious me. Where are the Honduran yard guys who came weekly in Connecticut? My yard never looked so good. Yes, Miss Alice, I add mulch here? Where you want the flowers, Miss Alice? I really should have appreciated them more. 'Cause this year and for the foreseeable future I am virtually on my own. And I haven't a clue. Not a master gardener like Bonnie on Storer Street. Not particularily fond of playing in the dirt to tidy the grounds. All one third of an acre. The Biddeford boys will still arrive weekly and back their John Deere off the ramp into my lawn but that is it. What's this arthritic, non-gardener to do?

But whoa nellie. Something happened. The sun is out. The temperatures in the high 60s. I grabbed my trusty outdoor implements. The few I have in the garage ... a snow shovel, a broom, a rake, a recycling bin and gloves with holes at the tips of a few fingers. Pointed myself reluctantly to the closest winter abused bed to dethatch, pull stray two foot high blades of grass with even longer root systems, rake last November's dried up oak leaves that fell after the others were whisked away. My thick chestnut hair tied in a scrunchy saved for cleaning tasks. Black sweats and last millennium's bright lime zipper front sweatshirt from the sale table at the GAP.

The strategist in me created a plan. Implementation my forté. Front yard Friday until 3 then a bath and my reward ... a movie at a real theatre! Back of the house today. Today was going to be a doozy. No movie. No nothing. Except I did stop a few times to play with Bailey who was so delighted to have her momma OUTSIDE. And to chat with neighbors with wheelbarrows, spades and hoes. I admit I was a bit jealous. My knee throbbed. Bailey loved it. I was in her turf for the better part of two days. TREATS in my pocket. And its done. Saved myself scads of $$$$ ... spent the better part of two days in the warm almost spring air ... and not near my 'fridge! The trifecta.

Amazing. I enjoyed the rhythm of making these beds sparkle. The hum of finishing an area and hobbling to the next. I actually accomplished a lot.

Am off to pour a large glass of Bordeaux. Boston Brigham and Women's Hospital noted in a medical journal this week that women who drink from time to time do not have a propensity to become obese. That and dark chocolate? I may even tackle the triangle behind the Chinese Chippendale teak bench tomorrow. It would be a lovely spot for forsythia.

Cheers!

Onederland

What is that white blur? A hobbitt? A brillig? An illusion? Nope there it goes again. A bunny! I see it is wearing a waistcoat. Not sure about trousers. Fairfield, Charlie's stuffed buddy with red felt overalls/no shirt, would be pleased.

Oh. There it goes. Darting in and out while I finish weeding behind the teak bench in the corner of my yard. A figment of my overactive imagination? Delusional from the über-diet I am following coupled with way too much yard work? I think not.

Bailey looks up from lapping water from the cement clam shell bird bath over by her bushes. The place where she cools down in the summer curling up on the damp pine mulch in the shady corner between the house and the back porch steps. She sees it too. Racing over to check for herself. The ruff of fur on her back standing at attention as she gallops in my direction. Delirious with sniffing. Bellowing as only she can do. Punctuating the neighborhood mid-day quiet with her yelps of excitement.

Whoosh. That speedy bastard must be wearing Nikes. Nikes and a colorful club-heart-spade-diamond waistcoat. Behind the bush. Under the car. Into the burn pile where I have been casting twigs, branches and last summer's now dry hosta spikes.

The perpetual Alice, I have been chasing the white rabbit for most of my life. That ... and yo-yo dieting oft appearing smaller than my normal self and in a spin of the head towering. Looming large. Literally and figuratively. Nonsensical adventures to most. But not me. Entirely logical in that life-in-chapters kind of way that defines my journey. Illustrating my ability to adapt regardless. Boredom propelling me to explore the unknown. But once. Just once. I'd like to have a talk-to with that rabbit, or whatever the madcap creature is who is in such a hurry darting about furiously upsetting the calm. Luring me. Hypnotizing, indeed. Distracting little bugger.

What the hell? Bailey and I discovered what seems like a rabbit den or a cave for some other species. Next to the Invisible Fence wire so she is barking but keeping a safe few feet away. Yes. The gaping holes between the roots of the 40 foot pine which along with its mates borders my yard. [Note to self: Have tree men check this out pronto so this graceful Maine evergreen doesn't topple onto my house in the next Nor'easter. That would be a bummer of major proportions.] The soggy ground giving way to a portal. [Better call the exterminator with the Have-a-Heart cage, too.]

Should I follow the white blur? I have been doing the math for this past week. Putting my strategy, my plans in perspective. The next steps on the highway c'est moi. Not sure it adds up. But, as queen of my very own (albeit tiny) kingdom, I will follow my heart. My head is sure to join us. The disembodied smile of Tikka, my neighbor's pewter cat with chartreuse eyes gazes through me. What if my head doesn't? It most assuredly should. Or, off with it altogether.

So its settled. Onward and upward. Confusion and doubt be gone with you. Too much introspection. I'm mad as a hatter. And fifty-nine times as zany. But I am baffled nonetheless. Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Tip your porcelain teacup to jabberwocky ... I'm off through the looking glass! And to devour that tray of pecan tarts cooling on the counter. Cheers!

Sump Pumps, Wet Vacs and a 4.4 Quake

Bummer. Pots of gold? Luck of the Irish? Hardly. More like pots and pots and pots of ground water seeping from every crevice and crack in my 160 year old cellar. Five more inches of rain soaked the already saturated earth. Sump pumps humming. Wet vac working overtime. I really didn't need this. Not now.

Arrived home to a starry mild dark blue night. The gorgeous off the chart week of sunshine, my darling sister's celebration week brilliant in my mind's eye. Perfectly orchestrated. Paradise. All of it. Sister time. Niece and nephew time. Extended family and childhood friends. Picture perfect in and out. Through and through. Newport Beach cloudless azure skies. Snow-capped San Gabriel mountains In the distance. Rocky Catalina Island just a waitin' for me!

Wouldn't you know it? Just as the calm spread like silk through my being, fury was erupting on the other coast. A heads up that anyone can be thrown out of paradise. Doesn't take much. A bite from an apple. A rejection from the big apple. The apple of my eye.

A spring Nor'easter churned the clouds again. Poured rain by the foot. The weather gods and Mother Nature angry. Very. Flexing their muscles. Conspiring and cajoling. The Los Angeles ground shimmied at 4:30 yesterday morning. The harbinger. The alarm to get out of bed, get dressed and move, girl. Don't miss the flight. Not the BIG one, mind you. But most assuredly a wake up call to get my ass in gear. A creaking realignment by the psychic omniscient chiropractor. The atmosphere fraught with subliminal messages. My inner peace at risk. Shaken. Not stirred. Olives banging me on the head. Zapping me to reality.

LLBean duck shoes. My nightgown wrapped around my waist. Middle of the night treks to the damp, now mildewing basement to suck the water oozing through the cracks. Tears mixed with streams of water lapping at my feet. Need to dry it up. Bring on the vermouth.

Forecast for tomorrow? Drier with less puddling. Cheers to the lemony crocus peering out of the soggy earth!

Bailey, I Have a Feeling We're Not in Maine Anymore

Wow. The winds shook my antique home in the village last night and it was scary. Very. Not since I moved back east from the edge of the prairie where tornadoes dropped out of the sky routinely have I been as frightened. Winds whipped through the aging walnut, pine and spruce trees planted precariously close to the house over a century ago. Branches and limbs groaned from the weight of the wind tearing at its joints. Cracking. Splintering. My heart beating as loud inside my head. Noisy.

A power surge popped through my television just as Kim Yu-Na from South Korea in her own power struggle with the favored skater from arch-rival Japan landed her triple lutz combo perfectly, eerily dimming the nightlight in the hall bathroom. Then *poof* ... a flash more brilliant than its four watts. Fade to black. Utter darkness. The only sound, a buzz from the streetlights outside zapped black.

A nano-instant later a circular rainbow magically appeared dead center in the fifteen inch screen of my analog TV. Crackle crackle. Not dead after all. No brand new ultra modern flat screen courtesy of Allstate in my future. Damn. And voilà. There she was floating gracefully across the white ice toward the kiss-and-cry area for her scores. The lovely soon-to-be Olympic gold medalist in blue satin and silvery sparkles smiling humbly and waving as the crowd cheered on their feet and petals dropped from the stands like the pine boughs now littering my backyard.

Sirens blared. Too close for comfort. My heart pounded. Memories of swirling black funnel clouds ripping utility wires and cutting a several mile path of destruction. 200 year old trees in Cherokee Park torn from their roots like a razor blade shaving a beard. Cars and houses tossed like beanbags into the bruised sky. Louisville April 3, 1974. Mom and Jason (of the golden fleece ... yet another Labrador Retriever in a long line of adored family pets) hunched in the front seat of the Gran Torino parked hastily under the portico of the fancy, new Glenview East as far under the dashboard as humanly (and canine-ly) possible. Mimi still eating fried chicken from the Colonel in her coat closet on the 12th floor. Me squeezed tightly between maids who had poured out of condos for the bus back to the West End belting out a rousing rendition of 'Sweet Low, Sweet Chariot' as we crouched by the elevators and the freight train whirled overhead. Awaiting their maker. Maker's Mark on the rocks for me.

Segué to flashes of countless violent twister-producing storms two decades later randomly taunting our Oklahoma days. Springs spewing purple-black funnel clouds across the treeless horizon, anvil-shaped with swirling tails dropping to the barren earth from February through summer. Humid heat from the Gulf of Mexico colliding dangerously with frigid arctic air masses sweeping down from Canada. Right over our heads. Tornado alley. Tornado Allie, I met my demons head on. Mother Nature's menacing rage forcing Charlie and me to tuck clumsily into the laundry room of a cellar-less house on the plains. Auntie Em screeching to get inside. The Dorothy in me racing against time to make it to safety. Cocooned in Charlie's bike helmet and my down ski parka, he in his football gear wrapped in the white duvet from my bed we hovered in the teensy space next to the garage too many times. Toby (that's short for Toblerone my favorite candy bar) our alpha-male chocolate Lab shaking like a sissy underfoot. Where's the fraidy hole when you need it? Good god.

With whistling dervishes and dust devils spinning my thumping heart into a frenzy last night, I ran barefoot down my winding staircase crafted lovingly by out of work ship carpenters in the mid-1800s when tall ships sprang up like mushrooms along the Kennebunk River winding to the sea just west of the village. Grabbed my car keys on the sea glass and beads fringe, my shiny yellow slicker from millions of years ago, one of those flashlights that use one gigantic battery and my LV purse and placed them on the floor by the front door ... just in case.

Quickly checked the two sump pumps working overtime in my very damp basement as rivulets bubbled up from cracks in the granite foundation and cement floor. Definitely rivaling the white water scene in River Runs Through It as waters from the Mousam River a block away overflowed their banks and seeped through the neighborhood creating a pond behind my house.

What a mess. Me robeless in my long white nightgown hiked up to my knees, knotted at the waist, my LL Bean rubber duck shoes squishing noisily, my hair in a scrunchy, my flashlight at the ready. And Bailey was loving it. Racing around the backyard as February lightening flashed and boughs of pine fell into the pooling water. Barking at the Mallard family making themselves at home. She was in heaven. Wouldn't come in. My timid rescue dog bedazzled by the thrill. Yelling at the top of my voice above the din scaring myself but not her. Slicker be damned (it was in the front foyer) I raced down the back steps, grabbed her collar and yanked her up the porch steps into the house dripping wet. Both of us. Of course she wanted a treat. She got none.

Upstairs my century old windows rattled in their crumbling casements. The walls shook for hours. My bed, too. Oz at my door. 60 MPH gusts pounding us from the ocean currents five miles away. Petrified I popped two Tylenol PMs then another for good measure and pulled the covers over my head. I would either get smacked in the head by a falling walnut tree crashing through the roof and awaken in The Emerald City. Or not. Butterflies churned in my tummy next to a pit the size of Kansas born from unsettled plans and dwindling coffers. Where are those poppies anyway?

I awoke to a gorgeous almost-spring morning awash in sunlight. Mother Nature's fury dissolved. My muscles relaxed. Only a few fallen branches, a receding waterline in my back yard still boasting ducks swimming and splashing ... and a sopping wet basement. Not too bad. No vortex sucked the life out of me while I slumbered fitfully. My demons at bay. Safe. For now.

Cheers to those of you still with me. Or, tomorrow for those still without electricity. M&Ms all around!

Broadcast News

On a scale of one to ten today is an eight point five. An almost picture perfect February day. It is nearly fifty degrees outside. The sky cloudless and the color of lapis. Little snow remains from the storm earlier this week. Birds chirp. Squirrels race. I want to not wear my Barbour parka or a scarf on my walk through the awakening neighborhood! Bailey pulls firmly and often on her leash for sniffs in the muddy yards off the sidewalk. Defying tugs to the contrary from her Gentle Leader. I can almost see the purple crocus poking through the softer earth. Soon budding forsythia will emerge from the grey wintermelt. A fresh perspective.

Today's a day for news. Good news. That elevates the overall score to a nine point five. The judges have pushed it up a notch. Elated, I take a quick, graceful spin around the rink smiling. Arms waving to the exuberant crowd. Thunderous applause. I nod. My sparkles shining incandescent. More cheers. Celebrations of a connection from my career's prior life. New York City. The heady 1980s. MTV-laced innovations. Creative programming. Multiple media platforms intertwined, leveraging the message. Marshall McLuhan smiles. Professor Jeannet, too. This former SATC girl is back with a flip of my shoulder length chestnut hair.

Opportunity to make good where I left off. Telecommunications empires. Emerging technologies. Broadcast media building radio and television groups in the digital age. Viral marketing across networks pixilated. Bytes a buzz. Branding in the brave new e-economy. The confluence of broadcast, interactive and wireless media. A lift. The much needed vote of confidence in all that I was ... and all that I can be.

Am I worthy? Talented enough? Who knows? Who cares? Just let me bask in the moment. Go Team Allie. The A team! Competitors start your engines this girl is back.

Cheers ... and another olive please!

Romancing the snow

It's gorgeous today in a way that makes me know that winter is losing its icy grip. Mild and sunny. A hint. A tease. Not January thaw material. Thank god, those days have passed. We're pulling up to the turning point. The defining line. A real moderation in meteorological terms. Longer days. Better sunshine. Melting snow. A valentine from Mother Nature herself. A veritable romance!

My muscle memory kicks in. Now, I remember what to do when the temperatures moderate and the crocus receives notification from the warming soil to start reaching for the sun. Head outdoors into the bliss. Like a new lover in those early heady days of infatuation. We're off. Bailey and I. A stroll through our village neighborhood with a spring in our steps and the hope of new discoveries.

Cheers ... to spring eternal!

To Snow ... Or Not To Snow

A blizzard is brewing. And, for once it is not headed straight up the Eastern seaboard to the Gulf of Maine to blanket us in feet of the white stuff. A respite. By this time of the year, we are storm weary. The days are lengthening. The sun is higher. Spring is in the air. Kind of. The temps have been moderating. Up into the high 30s. A few months ago that spelled winter. Not now. Warmer days herald spring. Warmer, a relative term.

It is everything I can do to refrain from storing the two snow shovels disgracing my screened in porch (my summer al fresco dining room) back on their empty hooks in the garage, pull the reflective glass topped aluminum driveway markers and sow some seed on my browned out lawn. Winters for the past few years defy global warming. Nowhere has it been more frigid and snowy than northern New England.

Not this year. Yes we have had a snow. Lots of it. But we have had several January thaws melting the piles. February has been downright sunny. Freezing, but ample sunshine. Snowbanks are virtually gone. Further south weather is singing a different tune.

Yes, from our nation's capital and the rolling hills of Virginia horse country up to and beyond the emerald city of Oz. Southern Maine and coastal New Hampshire on the cusp. The snow line. Blizzard to our south. Nothing to our north. Wouldn't you know it? Tonight, weather maps and forecasters are predicting precipitation of the white variety. How much? Unknown. Clear skies for weeks now. Goes to figure.

This evening my darling mother is treating me to a belated birthday celebration. The Monterrey Jazz Festival on tour. A much heralded performance at the chic music hall in Portsmouth. On the snow line. A dusting here. Six inches or more there. Our collective breaths are held. Eyes glued to the weather map. Frequent phone calls to the box office forty miles from home. Snow? No snow? Hmmmm. Will we go? Or not go? That is the question of the hour.

Cheers ... and all that jazz!

The Tax Man Cometh

Distractions. Lack of focus. Dread. My annual day-after ritual. Post birthday, that is. Those unavoidable, mandatory, all encompassing tax preparations. Time suck required. Now. I know. I know. April 15th is still months away. Early bird discount. The deep deuce if in my accountant's hands before Valentine's Day. His gift to me. Sealed with a kiss? Hardly.

So my gorgeous double banded mahogany dining table with acanthus carved pedestal legs has been requisitioned to serve as ground zero. Mission central. Morphed into a duty not befitting its stature. Piled high with reddish-brown pressboard accordion files, strewn with odd-sized bits of paper in all colors notes scribbled in red and marked with a circled 'T'. Like steer branded for slaughter. Receipts for meals eaten, flights flown, books read and medicine taken are commingled with assorted and sundry pens, pencils, paper clips, staplers and my trusty HP-12C. Difficult to navigate. A jumbled mess.

Post-It notes stick to the precious veneer labeling soon-to-be sections where category organization will take root. Charitable contributions, here. CCG company receipts from a deflating economy as clients bailed and deals unwound, there. An oversize Topsider shoe box for Charlie's giant boat shoes stuffed, the giant rubber band from Staples taut, containing a year's worth of American Express, MasterCard and utility bills paid up to the final moment -- when champagne corks popped and 2009 became a blurry memory.

Faced with the hum-drum minutia and the mind numbing organization of my tax stuff I have been a maelstrom of activity. A goddam marvel. A whirling dervish filing and arranging ancient bank statements tossed haphazardly on the shelf in the back of a downstairs closet into 3 inch black plastic binders preferring the painful finger pinch of the giant d-rings to my dining room table. Doing anything, but.

Procrastination as an art form. Perfected. Better to take an unpleasant stroll through the village neighborhood with Bailey in frigid 20 degree snowy wind than confront the quagmire in my dining room. All I want to do is skirt the piles and jolly-off.

I head straight to my ochre French Provencal kitchen to bake something scrumptious ... blueberry confections and a savory pumpkin soup. Who needs paper cuts from rummaging through the shoe box and accordion files holding receipt from last year? Or, arms elbow deep in a gaggle of papers? Not me. Not today.

Shaking my dry martini like a maraca, ice clinking like a steel drum ... I float away from the mundane task facing me tomorrow. Cheers!

Rainbrella

Torrential downpour out there. Wet, wet, wet. And windy. One to three inches forecast. 50 MPH gusts. Rain pelts the windows noisily. Rivulets stream across the cellar floor, bubbling up through cracks in the porous 160 year old foundation. Both sump pumps work overtime, sucking up the flow. Not unlike my musings. Where's a WetVac when you need one?

Self-indulgent, really. These words of mine. Spilling forth. Drip, drip, dripping incessantly. Puddling ankle deep. Sloppy. Water squishing between sockless toes. Rubber soles squeaking annoyingly as I banter about in my LL Bean duck shoes pontificating. A slippery slope.

Apologies, treasured readers. Monsoon season here. Hip waders required. Umbrella vendors out of nowhere hawk embarrassingly cheap wares in colors that defy the spectrum. Five dollars. Worth 50 cents. Buy one anyway. Stay with me while I journey on. Promise there's a pot of gold at the rainbow's end. Doubloons for all.

Cheers! To the leprechaun, green olives ... and tomorrow's sun.

Long Island Iced Tea

It's cold out there. Freezing. The wind is whipping swells across the bay. We are ready to board the commuter boat across winter waters to Long Island. Last stop of the line. Farthest island in Casco Bay. And its cold. Really cold. Blustery. Too cold for this fair weather adventurer. Even on a heated covered ferry. But that's where we are heading. Out onto the open Gulf of Maine. In January. My trusty black lab Bailey, my dear friend and me. LL Bean totes filled to the brim with weekend gear and doggy supplies. Banana bread and rosemary scones for our hosts. Salad fixings from the mainland. Nope. No grocery there.

We're not even taking the car. What a hoot. Bailey, the most timid, scared of the noise her own tail makes when it wag slaps the table, dog in New England. In New England for god's sake. Where the ubiquitous bandana clad Labrador bounds over beaches leaping into the air hankering for that errant frisbee sailing on high or a sopping wet tennis ball flailed at top notch speed into the surf skipping like a stone over the frothy waves sliding over the seaweed and kelp. No she is not the loopy, I'll do anything you want me to do retriever of TV ads and saccharine sweet movies.

Opposite. She doesn't give a ball a second glance. Never. Has no idea what to do with it. No over-eager retriever like Bosco and Chance her canine cousins in Massachusetts. Each filling a stretched out jowl with three tennis balls trying to stuff in the fourth. Not my Bailey. My darling rescue dog saved from a kill shelter in Georgia a few summers ago with a belly full of pups. My lab who hates loud noises and sticks and balloons. Bailey is a thinker. Won't step where angels fear to tread. Digs in her heels with an 'I dare you to make me' attitude not befitting a canine companion of the retriever brand. A scaredy cat really. Not one brave or adventuresome bone in her sixty-five pound body. Nary a one.

Bailey is way outside her comfort zone. She may as well be getting ready to board the space shuttle. Begrudgingly tugging at her leash as I coax her ever so slowly across the gang plank onto the boat bound for the out islands. Straining with all her might, the Gentle Leader starts to come unraveled. Wow. She's determined not to board. Her paws gripping the floor like Crazy Glue slinking like a Navy Seal under the bullet fire. Embarrassing. Very. Our bags unbalancing me like a fallen timber slung over one shoulder. Steady there. I need to get her to step over the lip onto the deck. Over the Styx. Treats strewn like Hansel and Gretel milestones along the gangway. C'mon Bailey. You can do it, sweetie.

One step at a time. Terror filled eyes. Hers and mine! She doesn't budge. We are holding up the line. Folks behind us are losing their patience. Hell, I am too. My dear friend swallows a belly laugh. I want to cry! Finally her feet come unglued and she hurls us toward the bench where we collapse in a heap, canvas tote bags littering the aisle. Relax, Bailey. Uncoil. Fold into the scent of the damp ocean air which you love so much. You did it. Phew! Can't believe we have to go through this again tomorrow on the way back! I am drained. Fried. My dear friend reaches into his canvas sack and pulls out a silver toned shaker beads of frost dripping. And two paper cups. I laugh knowingly. Our adventure has begun.

Come to me martini ... dry with three olives. Up. Cheers! Tomorrow is another day.