Endless Chain Pig Club
Official Eastern NC IBX Source ::Obama/Biden - It’s a choice, not an echo.::

And, if you’ve never taken the time to read the history of Washington NC, I suggest you do it now. I, of course, took the liberty of writing my own version, which, I’m sure you will agree, is far more interesting than the regulation, cleaned-up version offered by the local historians. And for those of you who were around a few minutes ago, you know I screwed this whole thing up… shhhhh, don’t tell anyone.

Now, with that in mind, I will reveal never before seen photos from 1998 — of Hurricane Bonnie and the CNN news crew who came to our unfair city of Washington NC to film DISASTER, PERIL, HUMAN SUFFERING and MORE.

I have uncovered my notes from that catastrophic storm and unearthed 5 Kodak Premium Digitally Processed Picture Disks (shades of my pre-digital Canon AE-1 days). Get ready America and lands beyond the sea and above and below the borders. Give me a few hours to Photoshop the hell out of them because they’re around 600K and they’ll choke your browser, even if you have a T-1 connection.

ok, how was that for a *PC, responsible type* post? Did I do that right?

You have to admit it’s better than my original post, which was:
"What the hell is wrong with the Hellhaven PD — are they out of their minds? Do they have minds? After flooding numerous times in the last 6 years, they failed to move their equipment, including computers, to higher ground. They don’t deserve FEMA help. FEMA, no wait, make it Homeland Security because, as everyone knows, hurricanes are now classified as terrorists, anyway, whoever the hell runs that stuff, the powers that be (the ones we have no control over because they were not ELECTED) should require a *What did you do to try to prevent these items from being damaged, since you had over TWO weeks notice?*"

That would have been mean-spirited, wouldn’t it? So I should post the first paragraph, not that one.

With Isabel gone and clean up underway, local thoughts can now return to the Navy’s OLF in Washington County. Or, in other words, bend over eastern NC and take it in the ass.

The antique shingles, collected by our 6 year old neighbor, are almost ready for retail. The wooden door, ACTUALLY DESTROYED BY HURRICANE ISABEL, [photo online in just a sec] is selling at a bargain price of $5.00, shipping and freight $50. No overnight delivery.

Pieces of GENUINE DESTROYED GARDEN TRELLIS, first come, first served. Prices to be determined by consumer interest.

Let us pray for the tortured soul of their third grade teacher. No, here’s what it really is, they want to buy "real hurricane water" so I might have to offer that in my online store. We still have a couple puddles out back, I can bottle it.

-vmac

Anyway, we’ve been putting together our own Sale Items that we’re going to offer right here on the INTERNET available through ELECTRONIC MAIL.

We’ll have genuine Hurricane Isabel pine cones, bark and leaves from the gutter of real nice house down the street, Eye of the Storm Antique Shingles from a National Historic Registry House, a GENUINE broke wooden screen door (from my garage), split tomatoes (on account of too much rain), half-dead peonies, and more…

We’ll be taking photos tomorrow and preparing our inventory. For now, just start digging through the couch cushions for spare change, rummage through your grandma’s old handbags for nickles, and shake down the neighborhood six year olds for their lunch money. This stuff’s going to be worth taking out a loan for…

We had winds of 95 mph. One lesson learned — while a bit unnerving, day time hurricanes are preferable to night. When you see what the wind does rather than only hear it slamming around you, it’s easier to remain calm. Believe it or not.

Loading photos — back in a bit. Will take pix later this morning and get back to the blogging.

vmac

I expect to lose power any minute. Damn… Now Marvin (I’ve forsaken Phillip, I began to feel a need to get into a kayak, try to paddle to the TV station, and kill him with my bare hands, so now I’m listening to Marvin on Ch. 7), well, the Man, Marvin, says our wind potential is 100 mph wind gusts coming up in a few minutes, throughout the afternoon.

I gave up, made myself a sandwich. I’ll never get to Bojangles today.

That freakin’ Phillip is back on Channel 9. Telling me not to light a candle when the power goes out because I’m too stupid to not catch myself on fire. I think I’ll let my Jack Russell hold the flashlight. The temp-eeeerrrrr-ahhhh-tchure is dropping. Poor Phillip is so afraid I’m going to go outside to make repairs to my mobile home (if I lived in one)

Ohhhh, I wish I had time to make mobile home jokes.

The guy wearing the garbage bag raincoat is standing outside about 5 blocks from my house, on tv. We just had a fuckin’ wind gust of 80 mph according to him. Water’s coming in through the windows here, not bad, just oozing in from the wind gusts. It’s an old ass house, remember?

We’re about to have to go outside (Sorry Phillip) because we need to shut off the gas to the water heater.

They’re trying to sell their house, and they screamed at their next door neighbor, Miss Patty (she’s old old old) yesterday when Miss Patty let her grandkids ride the moped all over her back yard to run the gas out of it. Said the noise was making them nuts.

You know, a hurricane watch is no reason to not be polite. And Miss Patty is so sweet. Since the screamers are vegetarians and granola’s, we’re going to leave a ham on their front porch with some kind of warning on it. Like the horse head in The Godfather, get it?

"Hey, ya’ll… Watch this."

Local joke.

After a few more words, we agreed that only in eastern NC do you get a wrong number and have a conversation.

Now I really do have to call my daughter.

Oh, I’m not complaining. Let me mainline some caffeine and recover my sense of humor. I am trying to keep from making wise cracks about Air Force One leaving Washington DC for safety reasons… Taking a crack at Bush is too easy.

Let me go look out the back window at the River of Strange, see if the Pamlico is up much.

Channel 12 just had a "photo update" of the storm. News folks stared at the photo for a few seconds, said "this is…. this is… hmmmmm, this is the view out the back door.It’s our parking lot."

Well, when we do get the eye, in a bit, we are going to walk down to the river for some photos and to access the rising water. High tide’s around 1, I think.

Must have more caffeine. Got sick of watching local yokels stand on piers and scream into microphones, decided to watch The Core. I mean, for pulp, pop culture science fiction, I can either look outside or watch a dumb movie.

Short story — two geniuses, probably brothers of the guy who went out in the dinghy, came to fix our bathroom floor a couple weeks ago. They nicked the drain pipe, so when I took a bath, water flowed and we had Niagra Falls in the kitchen. The 2 guys came back a couple days ago to fix the broken pipe, left an 8 inch hole in the floor next to the toilet, between it and the bathtub and they pulled up the sub-flooring.

Wind is blowing up through the hole. Gusting. I guess that means we’re having a hurricane, eh?

516 people in shelters in Pitt County (that’s Greenville) ECU evacuated students but they probably drove northward to where the bars won’t lose power.

We’ve got a near-drowning. Vester Flannagan, in downtown Beaufort NC, tells us about a moron who tried to go swimming, fell out of his dinghy, did NOT know how to swim … went out in a boat.

Welcome to eastern NC. I don’t plan on sticking with that guy — I’ll opt for someone with a little more sense.

Wind gusts at 60 mph right now.

Might walk up the street to look at the river… gotta’ think about that one for a while.

I’m trying to figure out why news reporters have to stand outside during a hurricane. Now they’re making a poor state trooper stand outside for an interview. He’s shaved his head for the hurricane, maybe that’s in case he can’t get home to clean up for a few days.

Sirens are going off all around us. I imagine it’s the police escort for the biscuit makers to Bojangles.

Eye on Isabel??

Or as we’ve been told — "One of the great wonders of eastern North Carolina" — whatever the hell they mean by that.

"If you’re just joining us this morning, we’re roughly a third of the way through this storm" according to Channel 12, 9:07 a.m. Skippy, the weather man, yes, that’s Skip Waters from Channel 12, is on and he’s talking so damn fast I can’t understand a freakin’ word he says. Adrenalin? And then on 9 there’s this poor, wet, chick just getting slammed.

And The Today Show has Al Roker at Kill Devil Hills. I’m worried about him. He lost all that weight, he’s too light to be on the beach. And every channel asks the camera man — "Can you pan the area?" What the hell? How about "Can you get the fuck off the beach and go to a place of safety? And… don’t light any candles."

The local weather folks just don’t have the snazzy outfits those Weather Channel and CNN people get to wear. Some of the locals have made rain suits out of Hefty garbage bags. I just hope they don’t cinch the bag closures too tight. I’d hate for their brains to lose oxygen. One guy’s in jeans, the other has on a blue WalMart rain suit and Hyde County Reeboks. What are Hyde County Reeboks? White plastic crabber boots. Local joke.

New Bern, James City, parts of Havelock, out of power. That’s about 40 miles from here.

They keep warning all of us to be careful with CANDLES. Be VERY VERY careful with candles. Ummmmm, it’s day time right now… only people using candles this time of day are stoners with incense and a huge bong, riding out the storm Garcia style.

Oh, and did I mention that the Pamlico River is going to rise at least 10 feet and did I mention it’s a block from my house? Nice visuals, rising water … I just hope we don’t get the floating dead pig parade like we did with Floyd.

Rumor has it Bojangles is flying in biscuit experts from the western part of the state, and sweet tea shortages are expected for Beaufort, Perquimans, Tyrrell, and Hyde County.

Please god give these local newscasters some grammar guidance. When using the verb "to be", plural nouns need plural verbs.

Electricity is blinking. Everyone check out the photo of my Atkins breakfast.

I think he’s getting excited because he’s going to try on a hair net in a few minutes. Maybe they’ll let him wear some plastic deli gloves too.

Behind the poor reporter, there’s not a single person in the cafeteria. I’ve got an idea for a Southern Freddy movie — imagine the soundtrack, the lead in, then a cafeteria lady, deli gloves on, hair net, white stained apron over her NASCAR t-shirt — with a knife slashing a box of napkins … then a close up to her eyes, wild and red, a bit of spittle dripping from the side of her mouth …

I think I may want to kill Elizabeth Wilder before it’s all over. She’s wearing a perky necklace of one-inch red beads with her sky blue jacket and white shirt. Her blonde hair, expertly coifed, her lipstick — red as my ass after sitting here in this cheap chair all night in front of my computer — thank god they’ve taken her off and now I get to see Phillip cream over his VIPIR radar.

Have ya’ll ever seen VIPIR radar? It’s a bunch of freakin’ arrows all over the damn map. Looks like something my daughter’s would have done — like they went into somekind of steroidal sticker rage at pre-school on a map of the eastern coastline.

ok, blood sugar’s not good. must have scrambled eggs and Meat. Governor Easley has just told me to expect my power to be out for 2-3 days, the fcker. Bet he has a generator in Raleigh.

Don’t ya’ll just love it when the poor weather reporter is standing on the beach, wind slamming around them, lawn chairs flying in the wind, beach umbrellas go by, and this poor doofus has to stand there, no hat, no shelter, in driving pouring rain, wiping their freaking hair off their face, holding a huge ass microphone up to their mouth and you can barely hear them as they yell over the wind about the hurricane that’s coming…

"This is Tammy Faye with Live Weather Update 2003, The Storm of The Day, and it’s really dangerous out here but that’s okay because, in order to make $22,000 a year for this crappy local TV station, I have to stand ten feet from these massive 25 foot waves so you can see the massive 25 foot waves because, God KNOWS, you have to get a live eye weather cam in the sky doppler first view of RAIN. And I’ll give my life so you can see this hurricane."

Geez.

Atlantic Beach call-in reporter Owen Conflenti (he ain’t from around here, everyone in Beaufort County NC has one of 4 last names: Alligood, Woolard, Cox, & Moore) Owen’s on the phone and Phillip the weather man wants us to understand he’s on the phone. ON THE PHONE, so those of you listening ON THE RADIO need to understand what Owen’s doing. He’s on Atlantic Beach, because he’s a REPORTER, and no one else gets to be there except residents.

That Owen’s special. As Phillip tells us, Owen voluntarily has chosen this career and we want to thank him for taking these chances. We have live VIPIR radar and Phillip’s so excited that the "management decided to commit to the spending required in order to acquire VIPIR" that I think he’s going to have an orgasm over it. Right here on TV, in front of me, before I’ve even had a second cup of coffee.

It is Phillip’s privilege and honor to bring us the latest radar. Phillip always says temp-eeerrr-ahhh-tour.

Don’t ya’ll wish you had Channel 9?

"One final plea, while the winds are just beginning to pick up, if you’re in a mobile home, do get out of mobile homes now. With the storm coming our way, it’s only going to get worse."

Evacuation shelters are filling up and some of the poor local news goobers had to stay in the high schools because, I suppose, they figure the breaking stories are going to come from Doris at the gymnasium who’s serving donuts. Doris has a large gap between her front teeth, a NASCAR t-shirt, tatoos on her forearms, and she’s put on some really bright red lipstick for the interview. I’m thinking she’s the cafeteria lady who’s doing hurricane kitchen duty.

I think I’ll stay home and eat my own Krispy Kreme donuts. Thank god the Kreme opened back up in Greenville NC a few weeks ago. Can’t imagine a hurricane without the hot light.

No one can go on Atlantic Beach. Of course people are driving down there to look at the waves and they’re pissed off when the cops turn them away.

I must have coffee. Massive amounts. I might make a espresso IV.

photos and more in a bit.

vmac

Cruel thought — I know, but the damn dogs ate my neighbor’s cat. When we called the police, scared to death with these dogs brutalizing and dragging the cat carcass around, they told us there was no city ordinances giving them authority to do anything about the dogs. So the dogs remain in the yard, get out about twice a week, and scare the bejeezus out of everyone. Gotta’ love the rural south, eh?

Our coordinates here in Washington:
35.5 N
77 W

For anyone keeping track.

My doofus neighbors — the ones who have 30 cats (seriously, they do) — have put all their cats in the attic because their house floods. They’re not leaving, but just now, at 11:30 pm, the 12 year old is trying to hang his bike on the garage wall. This is the same kid whose grandmother comes out and yells "Do you want to meet Jesus? You’re going to meet Jesus in just a few minutes if you don’t get off that roof."

The wind is swirling around now, limbs moving and cracking — but not much. We’ve moved the cars up the street to higher ground. Some buildings downtown are boarded up but most of them just have tape across the windows. Of course, we’re not supposed to get hit until lunchtime … we all still have time to kick into higher gear.

WalMart is out of C and D batteries. No more water, no coolers, very little bread. It’s always amazing to see people buying a cartload full of perishable food. It’s not just that the power will be out tomorrow, but I mean, come on… can’t someone live without milk and eggs for 2 days.

Took a good look at the gas hot water heater in our garage, since it will flood out there. I can shut off the pilot light and the gas in the dark, got it covered.

Oh, and the trip to WalMart? Squirt cheese, of course. Can’t hunker down without squirt cheese. They were out of peanut butter too (which makes sense, we have 2 jars and 4 boxes of crackers.)

It’s raining in spurts. Just for a few minutes, then it stops, starts again in a bit.

I met up with my 85+ neighbor who had a lot to say about the engineers who changed the pattern of Jack’s Creek. She said it used to run through town and people took boats up and down it. Now some geniuses (right after WWII) put in dams, bridges, and turbines to control the water flow. So now, of course, it floods. That’s where the porta potty is, the one lashed to the phone pole. It’s where they’ve been trying to build a new bridge and dam at Jack’s Creek. About a block from my house.

more in a bit…

Thanks to all ya’ll for tuning in.

Called Hog Heaven and told them to bring some PIG down to the out-of-towners from Charlotte. Their response? "How many of them are there?"

Then we told the cameraman who said, "Eastern NC barbeque, here? For us?? Damn. I love me some pig." He told us they’d be down there all night.

Now that’s eastern NC hospitality all right. Hog Heaven, coming through for the news crew.

More photos in just a sec. Keep checking, I’m trying to post some every hour. There’s not much to look at, just the preparations. No big storm shots… we’ll get those in the morning.

Will post photos in an hour. The wind is picking up, the bands are more visible and dark. The wind goes from cold and dank, to hot and humid. This one is bizarre.

A local woman, when interviewed by Raleigh TV news crew last night, said, "We’re getting ready to hunker down and ride it out."

The feeder bands became visible around 10 a.m. Those are the stripes of clouds that signal pending storms. I wonder if native Americans saw those bands and knew storms were coming? Probably.

I broke down and bought ice a little while ago — I’m sticking with the Pig. The manager told me I’d "best grab some now, it weren’t gonna’ be here for long." Also bought ChexMix, diet Cokes, cat litter, and 2 packs of Camel Lights for Ruth. I guess we’re about ready except for getting in the porch plants and swing, and the rockers.

And this house has been through lots of storms.

Then again, maybe this Isabel might just fizzle out. Maybe the storm surge won’t be as bad as predicted. Maybe pigs will fly out of my ass.

The sky is filled with stars, a slight breeze is blowing, and it’s just beautiful outside this evening. By Friday it will all be over and this blog will change back to The Endless Chain Pig Club. For now, it’s almost time for Letterman. The 11 pm hurricane update’s posted, and it’s time to just chill out.

Watch the Pamlico Sound on your hurricane tracking maps. And cross your fingers. I should be having a nice tumbler of Beefeaters by this time tomorrow night, watching the wind and rain. Hopefully the wind will turn and blow the water out of the Sound.

The storm surge, predicted to reach 8 - 10 ft, will reach us by tomorrow evening. Then it will get higher on Thursday.

One ironic note: stores are re-using plywood from Hurricane Floyd… and most folks write messages on them, so he’s seeing "Go away Floyd" and "Floyd, Go Fly a Kite".

State troopers stand around at major intersections in KDH and Nags Head, probably waiting for the mandatory evacuation and to be there to issue get-back-to-your-house after the storm passes for residents.

Me? I’m going swimming. No storm yet, might as well get some sun.

Not only are we getting Isabel, we get the Navy to run all over us, defying common sense, and placing an outlying landing field for touch-go landing practice, right in the middle of the eastern fly way, where tens of thousands of migratory birds flock each year. They’re taking away farms and businesses in their pursuit of the OLF. Just goes to show you that rural NC has become the Navy’s bitch. We have about as much political clout as my Jack Russell terrier.

"Flash to all those who support the OLF. Go right ahead, but don’t insult my intelligence by accusing me of being unpatriotic because I’m not interested in listing to noise imported from Virginia." More opinions.

Dole, the mis-informed, thinks we’re all thrilled because Cherry Point gets 1200 new jobs. This ain’t Cherry Point and all we get is shit. And noise. Because VA Beach gets to build hootie tootie residential areas in the path of the Navy’s landing strips and they homeowners are pissed about the noise — we get it — because we are insignificant. Va Beach residents built AFTER the Navy came to town. They had a choice, they could have built somewhere else.

Enough of that. It makes me so angry that I can’t speak of it.

And the NO OLF rally set for Raleigh this evening has been cancelled because of Isabel. So ya’ll can stay home and feel powerless about everything.

Local TV just gave us all a lecture on how to plot latitude and longitude on a map. Go figure, we’re all too stupid to know how to do that. Sad.

Emergency management has not put up roadblocks on Hwy.64 yet, but anticipates doing so soon. Hyde County em mgmt is providing buses for evacuees and telling them to plan to be in a shelter for a minimum of 3 days.

And Isabel weakened, then began to strengthen again. On the map of the projected path, we’re right smack in it. For those of you wondering why we don’t get out, it’s because this house has been here for 100 years and we feel safe here. We are taking my 86 year old mother inland, though.

I’ve posted some photos of last night, pre-Isabel. Will post more as weather develops. PKF told me the waves at Emerald Isle are up to 14 feet and they’re going out to take a look this afternoon, then pack up and leave. She’s doing what I do — cleaning house and doing all the laundry. It’s a woman-zen thing.

Time to take the movies back to Blockbuster…

The good news is: my neighbor’s had an abandoned car in her front yard for over a year and the city just lets it sit there and become a vine-infested wonderland for snakes and bugs. (She also has hundreds of bats flying out of her house every night.) What with the approaching storm and the tendency for our street to get about 2 feet of water with any major storm, the city posted a note on the windshield announcing the car would be towed tomorrow.

My street, which I nicknamed "The River of Strange" is one block long — more of an alley than a street. Unpaved. It’s back yard to some, front yard to others, side yard to me. Since it’s also trash pickup day, Velma, my 90+ year old neighbor, is cruising the River, going through everyone’s trash and selecting choice discards and throwing them in the back of her pickup truck. Too bad she didn’t get the car. She did, however, pluck up the old toilet seat we’d left on top of the trash can and the throw rug the cat threw up on last week.

Jack’s Creek, a strange winding creek that runs through town, underground and above, is the source of a lot of the floods, the excess water. Huge turbines open and close the floodgates. At the end of the River of Strange, the turbines were due to be replaced after Hurricane Floyd and the City hasn’t done the work yet. Should present an interesting conundrum, since the bridge by the turbines is only half replaced and all the equipment, from rebar to cranes and a porta-potty, sits there, 20 feet from the Pamlico River. I sure hope that porta-potty gets moved tomorrow. Watching that float down the River of Strange will make for a nice photo-op, I have to admit.

Woke up looking at the stats, saw that Isabel is a now a cat 3 and thought, hmmmmm, good, we don’t have to worry now. Then I remembered cat 3 winds are 115 mph. So we still have to get the cat in, take the hanging ferns down from the front porch, get the lawn chairs to the garage, and do the Hurricane Dance.

My friend in Emerald Isle is leaving for Jacksonville with her family soon. Better to ride the storm out a little bit inland.

Drove around town last night. Checked out the plywood population at Lowe’s and it is dwindling. WalMart was bursting at the seams with about 20 family reunions. At least that’s what it looked like. Folks hugging and smiling and just being so damn glad to see each other. Old Home Week — my father used to call KMart and WalMart encounters with neighbors and friends. It was definitely Old Home Week yesterday. Despite my quick foray into WallyWorld, I am sticking with the Pig.

We’ve been told by those who know storms (local pundits, old timers) that the direction Isabel is coming toward us means she’ll blow the river out. Now that’s a bizarre thing in itself. I’ve seen the Pamlico like that — the water just gets sucked right out into the Pamlico Sound. Good time to look for Civil War memorabilia — seriously.

Okay, back after the 11 am next update. We still don’t have a hurricane watch. Schools are closed in Hyde and Dare County but not here in Beaufort County. The garden lady at Lowe’s says she’s keeping her kids home on Wed, she doesn’t care what the school board says. She had to wade in waist deep water to get them during Floyd.

If you’ve never been to Ocracoke, don’t go. Because if you do, you will tell everyone how wonderful it is and more and more people will go there and we don’t want it spoiled. But it is an amazing place. It’s a 2 and 1/2 hour ferry ride from here to the island.

Hyde County, NC. Never heard of it? Upon entering the county, the sign says Hyde County, The Road Less Traveled and damn if they aren’t right. Less than 5,000 people live there, no incorporated towns, and it’s just the end of the US mainland. Rumor has it even the state police won’t drive there after dark unless they absolutely have to. Rough place — but Lake Mattamuskeet is there and that is one amazing lake. Hyde County took a couple major hits with Hurricanes Dennis and Floyd. The residents still haven’t recovered. Sad thing, seeing all those belongings, the furniture, the clothes, all piled up on the side of the road, ruined, waiting for the highway dept. to come and take it all away. I was going to publish URL’s of Hyde County sites, but they’re all down. That means the server’s out there, I would imagine.

News crews begin to flock to the Outer Banks. CNN came here, years ago, to film a hurricane, I don’t remember which one, it was in 1998. I rode around in the truck with them, showing the crew where to film, where the flooding would be the worst. The film crew was nice. The announcer and his crew were total assholes. Wanted to know where the "women" were…

vmac

There are big ass snakes in the floodwaters. All kinds of animals drown, but snakes swim.
With Floyd we watched pigs and cows float down the Pamlico River.

If you have an outdoor cat, buy a litter box and lock your cat in the bathroom a day ahead of the projected hurricane landfall. Cats lose their minds during hurricanes and they won’t come in for love or money (but why would a cat want money anyway?)

Freeze everything and then when the power goes out, it’ll thaw slowly and you won’t have to buy ice. And don’t go buying milk — anyone can go 48 hours without a damn glass of milk. Then again, maybe folks need cereal, it is one of the ultimate comfort foods, next to mac and cheese, which we won’t be eating because we won’t have power and it’s hard to boil water for macaroni on a charcoal grill. Don’t eat raw hot dogs, you’re not a kid anymore. Cook ‘em. You’re a grown up and you know what they put in those things.

Buy Excedrin, the melt in your mouth kind. Why? Because if you can’t boil water and make coffee, you’re going to have the caffeine headache of the century. Forget the flood of the century, caffeine withdrawal sucks more than having cockroaches float in with the tidal pool swirling around your back door. Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew — that caffeine fix just doesn’t cut it if you’re used to coffee.

To those of you who live in the projected landfall area, it’s too late to buy insurance so you’d best grab what you love, slap it in a plastic box, and hope for the best.

On Tuesday, if this Isabel is really coming, make sure you have prescriptions for at least 2 weeks, just to be on the safe side.

Fill your car up with gas. If you hate your car and you’re trying to get out of a lease, park it in the lowest elevation possible. (just kidding)

More tips and expert commentary (did I say "witty reparte’?) coming up soon….

The bad news: Isabel (see Tropical Update). Although the powerful hurricane appears to have hit a cobblestone road in the Atlantic today and currently is looking rather frazzled, it probably will make a comeback before it nears the U. S. coast. Landfall is still anticipated sometime Thursday along the Mid-Atlantic shores, so residents from North Carolina northward need to be prepared. And watch for the "canary-in-a-coalmine" tomorrow: rising surf and rip currents.

What does that mean? It means, for us, that we should go out and buy an ice chest, a new cooler, because if we lose power, I lose all the tomato sauce, salsa, and pesto I froze. And my man-eating free-range tomatoes continue to seek out new prey, I hope the storm doesn’t wipe them out.

We had a good old time talking about Thanksgiving past while I made the pies.

Back in the good old Bob and Ruth days, right after WWII, they went apartment searching with my Aunt and Uncle (daddy’s brother) in Chicago — pre-kids days. Daddy was, of all things bizarre, going to sell Sperry Rand computers. Anyway, Ruth is relating all this to me as we are pie baking today because Aunt Betty sent a nice letter this week. Ruth says this:

"So, we decide, after apartment hunting, to go to a bar. Have you ever been to a bar where they have back of the bar entertainment? Well, that’s where we went. And a woman came out to do a strip tease, opened the zipper on her blouse and a giant bunch of flowers popped out, like magician flowers … then she turned around and un-did a zipper on her butt and the same thing happened. Your Aunt Betty and I laughed so hard that your father said we were going to be thrown out of the place. Your father, in his usual dry style, leaned over to me and said Ruth, this is art. Behave yourself. You know, he had to do the same thing when we were in Berlin. We went to this oh-so-chic art museum, apparently it was THE museum to see. We were with this wonderful couple we’d met, he was a professor at the University of Berlin, anyway, his wife was just great. As she and I came around the corner, we came face to face with a larger than life size painting of Leda and the Swan. It was obscene… crazy obscene. I looked at my friend, she looked at me and we collapsed into each other with laughter. Bob and her husband shook their heads and told us we were going to be thrown out of the museum."

Mom and Dad were in Berlin in the early 80s.

Ruth and I talked about how, when you get the giggles, you can’t stop — adult or child — and no one around you is amused. But Ruth did allow as to how Bob was always amused by her, if she got the giggles, he indulged her.

She’s in a great mood, not at all morose about Thanksgiving with just Rob and me as family.Excited about going down to Emerald Isle to Phoebe Kate’s house. And for that — I am thankful.

Back to Ruth, who had decided she was feeble, fragile, and had "lost her confidence" — this due to? But today — She’s begun to get her act in gear , thank goodness, because being feeble, to Ruth, means eating pudding after every meal, leaving your dishes on the table, and, when dinner isn’t ready or obvious by 5 p.m., saying "I’ll just cook myself an egg then I’ll be out of your way." And holding onto furniture and door frames as you walk, staggering and wobbly, through the house. Oddly enough, though, she’s still able to literally almost jump over the dog gate into the living room so she can get out the front door to have a cigarette on the porch.

During Hurricane Isabel I tried to call my daughter (25 miles east of me) to find out how she was doing. Here is the conversation:
"hello"
"hey, ya’ll okay? I just woke up from a nap."
"Who is this?"
"Valerie"
"You must have the wrong number."
"I’m so sorry. You sounded just like my daughter."
"No problem. You in Farmville?"
"No, Washington."
"I’ve got a house in Swan Point. How’s it going down there? Ya’ll flooding yet?"
"No, but it’s getting pretty windy. Nasty out."

After a few more words, we agreed that only in eastern NC do you get a wrong number and have a conversation.