Christmas Market Lottery
The last month, everyone who signed up for a Christmas Market cruise in Europe started checking in daily with Bespoke Amsterdam Experiences, a niche but highly valuable service which shows you the water levels on the Rhine today, and predictions for a variety of days down the road.
It has been a wild ride. The waters began running very low in October. Some ships made it through the entire Amsterdam to Basel route, most did not. Sometimes the ships have done swaps to get around the particularly low areas, which means you get to one port and pack up and leave your suitcases outside the door. You get on a bus and go to a market location, and then on to a second ship, identical to the one you got off, and your luggage is waiting inside your identical room. It is mildly inconvenient, but you get to see all the sights you wanted to see.
We’ve done this before, with Tauck. It wasn’t bad.
Some ships this year have been competely rerouted. Some are going Amsterdam to Brussels, which is a totally different trip.
There is an option for a visit to Bruges, and Bruges is a city I absolutely love. I can imagine it could be a lot of fun, exploring Christmas Markets in old Dutch cites, but it is not the trip we booked.
Christmas Market at the Cologne Cathedral
On our last Rhine Christmas Markets trip, we got to spend a day in Heidelberg, where we have spend a lot of time in a previous life, and to visit Aachen, another city we love for it’s history and charm. I had also wanted to see Strassbourg and Colmar, which we visited, but I was not able to get off the ship – I caught a terrible cold, so bad I couldn’t function. AdventureMan visited on his own, and it was one of the saddest events in our traveling – being so near to places we have been before and loved, and not being able to share the experience.
So we booked it again.
A lot of people are totally freaking out about the changes. Us – not so much. The Tauck trip was perfect, right up until I caught the terrible cold, and that is no ones fault, like the tree in our back yard, just one of those things, an act of God. Often an unxpected change can have charm of its own. We just roll with it.
I do freak out over last-minute airline cancellations, so we pay Viking to manage all that for us. It happens more than we would like, but Viking kicks in, gets us on routes (often better than the original), and we get where we need to be.
This morning we got a letter from Viking telling us that the rivers are rising, and that they are optimistic our trip can proceed as planned. Wooo HOOO!
Texas! It’s Time to Start Flipping Tables!
There was a movie we watched, came out in 2024, Civil War (this is the IMDB link). Exciting, scary movie speculating about the next civil war in the United States of America, pitting a unified Texas and California against a co-alition of the conservatives. What I couldn’t figure out then was how could it be Texas and California? Texas was part of the conservative core?
And then, Tuesday night, the paradigm shifted. All things became possible. The most gracious acceptance speech given by James Talarico, created options that would have been unthinkable. I want to share that speech with you:
We just took back Texas. We just proved that all the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas. We just showed that a politics of division is no match for a politics of love. And we just sent a message to every billionaire mega donor, every trillionaire mega donor, every corrupt defender of this broken political system in this state, in this country: Power belongs to the people.
I’m reminded of that story from scripture of a shepherd boy who goes up against a giant. For 40 days, Goliath teases and taunts. On the day of the fight, he shows up in full armor. He’s carrying so many weapons. He needs someone else to carry his shield. In this race, we went up against our own Goliath.
The richest man in the world, the most powerful man in the world and the entire Washington D.C. establishment. David wasn’t as big or as strong as Goliath. He didn’t have as many weapons, but he had hope. He had faith and he had a slingshot. You were my slingshot. The people of Texas were my slingshot. And tonight, and tonight we defeated Goliath.
Scripture has taught me, my own life has taught me, always bet on the underdog. Before I was a politician, I was a public school teacher. I taught language arts at Rhodes Middle School on the west side of San Antonio. And as I always say, teaching middle school is the best preparation for politics.
The West side is a beautiful historic neighborhood. It’s also one of the poorest zip codes in the entire state of Texas. Every day, my students struggled heroically to overcome a rigged system. My students weren’t just kids. They were survivors, dreamers, fighters. I saw it in their eyes every day, this unshakeable resolve, this unconquered spirit.
Growing up, I saw that same fight in my mother, a preacher’s daughter from Laredo who left home at 19.She moved up to Austin and met my birth father, a 21-year-old high school dropout whose drinking problem sometimes led to violence. One night he became abusive again, but that night, that night, my mother’s love rose to meet that abuse. She packed all our stuff into her little Ford Escort. She drove me to the hotel where she worked. She begged the manager to let us stay in one of the rooms until we found this little apartment in East Austin. There wasn’t room for a nursery, so I slept in a crib in her closet and she was so proud of that closet. She decorated it with pictures and toys. No one was going to tell her it wasn’t a nursery.
Always, always bet on the underdog. We were the underdogs in this race. We went up against nearly 40 years of doubt and disillusionment.We went up against more than $300 million, more than any Senate campaign in American history. We went up against all the negative ads, smear campaigns, foreign bots and AI deep fakes that money can buy. Those attacks were the final howls of a dying establishment. The death rattle of a status quo that knows its days are numbered.
They played dirty because they were desperate, but we never lost hope. We never lost faith. And against big money and long odds, we took our power back. Always, always bet on the underdog.
We built a movement unlike any this state has ever seen. We united Texans from all backgrounds and beliefs onto one team to take on this broken, corrupt political system. First time voters, three time Trump voters, working people from every corner of this state who are fed up and ready for change.
This win, this win is for every underdog who’s been counted out and left behind. This win is for every teacher and every nurse, for every farmer and every rancher, for every young person who’s trying to buy a home, for every parent who’s trying to put food on the table. This win, this win is for every Texan who’s ever wondered if anyone is listening. I heard you. We heard you. And tonight the world hears you.
To the Texans who supported this movement, I am humbled by your trust and I will work every day to be worthy of it. And to the Texans who didn’t vote for me, I will be your senator too. I will always serve you. I will always fight for you. This win is not about the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. It’s much bigger than that.
There is something broken in America. Our economic system is broken. Our political system is broken. Even our relationships with each other feel broken. That’s because the most powerful people in the world want it that way.
My granddad was a Baptist preacher in South Texas, and when I was little, he told me that we follow a barefoot rabbi who gave us two commandments, love God and love neighbor, because there is no love of God without love of neighbor.
Every single person bears the image of the sacred. Every single person is holy, not just my neighbor who looks like me, not just my neighbor who prays like me, not just my neighbor who votes like me. I am called to love all of my neighbors the way I love myself.
Because despite our differences, we all want the same things; a safe neighborhood, a good job, a high quality, well-funded public school, and the ability to see a doctor when we need one.
But the billionaires who own the social media algorithms, who own the cable news networks, who own the politicians fighting on our screens, they want us at each other’s throats. They want us focused on how we’re different instead of on how we’re the same. They want us looking left and right at each other instead of looking up at them.
The real fight in this country is not left versus right. It is top versus bottom. The people at the top work so hard to keep us angry and divided, because our unity is a threat to their wealth and their power. We saw it in this race. We saw it in every billionaire funded attack ad.
The people at the top divide us by party, by race, by gender, by religion, by culture, so we don’t notice that they are picking our pockets. That they are defunding our schools, that they are gutting our healthcare, that they are raising taxes on all of us while they cut taxes for themselves. It is the oldest strategy in the world, divide and conquer.
But tonight we sent a crystal clear message to the people at the top. We will not be conquered. I think it’s safe to say that we are tired of being pitted against each other. We are tired of being told to hate each other. It has been 10 years of this kind of politics, politics as blood sport, politics as trolling and owning, politics as professional wrestling.
It tears families apart. It ends friendships and it leaves us all feeling terrible all the time. People across the political spectrum are hungry for a different kind of politics. Not a politics of hate, not a politics of fear, not a politics of division, but a politics of love.
My faith teaches me that love is the strongest force in the universe. Love is not passive. Love is not neutral. Love is not weak. Love requires that we stand between the bullies and the bullied. Love requires that we look evil in the eye and not blink. That kind of love has always been a threat to the powers that be. That kind of love is revolutionary. That kind of love is creative.
Hate is predictable. Hate is boring. Hate can’t lower our energy bills. Hate can’t teach a child to read. Hate can’t build a future. But what hate can’t do, love can.Love can turn a student into a scholar. Love can turn a closet into a nursery. Love can turn an enemy into a friend. Love can turn a campaign into a movement. Love, love can heal what’s broken in America. We can’t defeat the politics of division with more division. We can’t win that game. We have to change the game.
In my experience, when you extend an open hand rather than a closed fist, you’ll be surprised by who takes that hand. We didn’t win this race by alienating our neighbors, or shaming our neighbors, or ridiculing our neighbors. We embodied a new kind of politics, a politics rooted in a deep love for our state, for our country, and most importantly, for all of our neighbors.
We mobilized. We mobilized our 60,000 volunteers in every corner of the state, and together we delivered bottled water to Sand Branch, a community south of Dallas with no running water. We donated school supplies to an elementary school in El Cenizo, a small town on the border. We collected more than 20,000 pounds of groceries for families in Fort Worth who are struggling under the high cost of living.
Before the world changes in ways you see on TV or read about in newspapers, the world changes person to person, neighbor to neighbor. In each moment when you choose to be kind, in each neighbor we choose to love, in each prayer that we save for someone who would not pray for us in return. This is how we won Texas. This is a win the size of Texas. And now we have a mandate the size of Texas.
This election was about chasing a vision of what this state can be. Texas public schools that are the envy of the nation, a Texas economy that is second to none, and Texas families that are stronger and healthier than they’ve ever been before. It won’t happen overnight, but a giant state deserves giant dreams. And we know how to get there. We must get big money out of our politics, so no billionaire or trillionaire can buy our elections.We must unrig this economic system that only benefits the top 1%. We must pass universal healthcare, so no one goes bankrupt just because they get sick. We must invest in our teachers and our students, so every underdog has a fighting chance. We must end these corrupt forever wars that are driving up prices and killing our great men and women in uniform.
And we must heal the deep spiritual corruption at the root of all of these crises. We must bridge the divides between us and repair the ties that bind us. We forged a new kind of politics here in the Lone Star State, an answer to this decade of division.
We showed that when working people come together across every dividing line, we can do extraordinary things. We won this race because people who are desperate for change now are going to get change.
That old politics is dying and a new politics is being born through each of us, through every underdog, through every David against every Goliath, through every Texan who believed in our state and believed in this movement. Now the real work begins.
2,000 years ago when the people at the top hurt his neighbors, that barefoot rabbi didn’t stay in his room and pray. He walked into the seat of power and he flipped over the tables of injustice. As this movement heads to the seat of power, as we head to the United States Senate, we know what this moment requires of us.
Texas, it’s time to start flipping tables.
Love Those Norwegians: Making Shithouses Great Again
Just as this explodes into one of the worlds worst elections ever, Norway comes up with a Visit Norway theme that gives us all an opportunity to laugh. And to admire their excellence in design. Not a sign of gilt.
Huge thanks to the Guardian for this timely story.
‘We make shit houses great again’: Visit Norway cleans up after Trump’s insult
Tourist board responds with toilet humour after US president expresses ire over failure to win Nobel peace prize, labelling it a ‘shithouse country’
Jon Henley Europe correspondentThu 29 Oct 2026 13.22 EDTShare
Some might find it decidedly incommodious to be dumped on by Donald Trump as a “shithouse country”. Not the Norwegian tourist board, which chose instead to lift the lid on some of the nation’s loveliest lavatories.
“Are these the world’s best shit houses?” asked Visit Norway on its website, days after the US president vented his fury once more over failing to win the Nobel peace prize by describing Norway as a “shithouse country” at a rally on Sunday.
“Norway makes shit houses great again!” the agency continued above pictures of some of the country’s most striking public conveniences, adding: “These toilets are worth a visit, both when you really have to go – and when you don’t.”
Trump delivered his tirade at a rally in Michigan days before the US midterm elections. “Frankly, Norway sucks. Norway has become a shithouse country, actually,” he declared, using a term he has previously applied to Haiti, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
He added that he would welcome migrants from some countries but not Norway, “because I didn’t get the Nobel Prize”. Earlier this month, Trump denounced the decision to award the prize to Navi Pillay, a former international criminal court judge.
“This is an indelible stain on the country of Norway and those people that made such a disgraceful and embarrassing decision,” he said. “I never heard of this person. The Nobel peace prize has been forever discredited … And we will not forget, Norway.”
Along 18 designated scenic routes around Norway, Visit Norway said, leading architects had been tasked with transforming the humble wayside privy into an attraction in its own right. Several have since won international architecture awards.
The agency pictured a series of designer public conveniences, many of them architecturally striking and all offering breathtaking vistas overlooking fjords, beside rushing rivers and foaming waterfalls, and at stunning scenic viewpoints.
They “invite you to take your time and enjoy the scenery, even if you don’t have any business to take care of”, Visit Norway said, highlighting – among others – the restrooms at the Stegastein viewpoint in the Sognefjord region of western Norway.
This particular comfort station, the tourist board noted with uninhibited pride, had been ranked among the 10 best public toilets in the world by DesignCurial, the online architecture, design and interiors magazine.
Combining clean, minimalist lines with the fjord’s rugged and brooding landscape, the loos are famous for their large, black-tinted glass windows, which allow visitors a sweeping view from the throne while remaining invisible from the outside.
It also highlighted the unique, wave-shaped Ureddplassen loo on the wild coast of Helgeland, the southernmost district of northern Norway, hailed by several international publications as the most scenic restroom in the world.
Also featured are the solar-powered modernist bog at the Utsikten viewpoint, the “Instagram-worthy” Tungeneset loo (“looks pretty good underneath the northern lights”), and the world-famous triangular “golden toilet” on Senja island.
Jens Kjeldsen, a rhetoric professor at the University of Bergen, said that under the circumstances, Visit Norway’s response was well judged. “It’s like the bully in kindergarten,” he told NRK public television. “If you get too serious, the bully wins.”
Evgenia Egorova, a senior consultant at Visit Norway, told the broadcaster the response to its social media fightback had been immense. “The world needs a little laugh,” she said. “We thought: let’s meet them with kindness, and a little humour.”
Visit Norway said it had more stylish loos in the pipeline, including a forest-inspired latrine using dried wood from more than 60 trees. “Get ready for the pit stop of your life,” it urged, before signing off with a cheery: “Toodeloo!”
The Nobel peace prize is famously not awarded by the nation or even the government of Norway, but by the Nobel prize committee, which operates independently – something Trump “knows very well”, the foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, said. “We have reminded him of that, in case anyone is wondering.”
Authors note – it wasn’t that long ago that the toddler in charge was talking about getting more nice (white) Norwegians to come to America. LOL.
Sometimes, It All Comes Together
My friend called me on Sunday, asking if we still needed help with our tree problem. “Yes,” I said; we sure did. She needed work done, had a team that did a great job, and asked if I wanted to meet them. “Yes!” I said, with enthusiasm, and they came over, talked with my husband, and made a deal.
A deal isn’t a deal until it’s done, as I see it. Lots of guys make promises and don’t show up. These guys showed up. They showed up with the right equipment and the right skill sets and experience.
I wasn’t there to watch. I had a commitment at a local elementary school where I volunteer, but AdventureMan kept sending pictures. He was pumped! These guys knew what they were doing. Most of the photos here are his.
While two guys went to work putting ropes on the BIG problem, our tree that ended up horizontal twenty feet off the ground over two fences and three back yards, one man went to work on the heritage pine tree in front, with a dislodged bough that never fell. He made short work of getting it down, and trimmed off a couple others that he thought might prevent a future problem.
Then, he tackled the Holly Tree which has leaned over the years until it was pointing directly at our house.
Finally, the BIG Problem. The tree over three yards. The good news is that our three backyards have large gates, so we could access all three yards. They brought in heavy machinery, and while they worked on different parts of the tree, the machine lifted it and held it up. The fences were undamaged, except for the one we were already preparing to replace before the storm because it was old and rotted.
When the loggers had finished, they saw one more long bough which was damaged, and likely to come down in the next serious wind, so they took that down, too.
These guys were amazing, and the job didn’t even take a full day. They were gone by early afternoon. They cleaned up, stacked all the logs, piled the boughs and blew the patios and drives clear. We were grateful, and impressed.
It wasn’t cheap. It was reasonable. The Pensacola News Journal had run a story on avoiding scammers, and gougers, and listed price ranges for work that were within a reasonable range; ours was right in the center, and they did a lot of extra work and all the clean up. We are so relieved to have the dangerous trees gone, and so relieved to have this great team to help us.
We are also grateful for the help from friends and neighbors, helping us with resources, good recommendations, good information and support as we went through this hurricane.
Not So Fast
It is a humbling experience (she says wryly) to be experiencing a sharply upward learning curve at a point in my life when I am supposed to be wise, by virtue of age and experience.
Yes, I have been through one prior full-blown hurricane, and many tropical storms, sandstorms, more than one earthquake, and even a flood. No two have been the same. I’ve lived a life full of challenges, and thrived. I’ve learned to think fast, to solve problems. I’m good at it.
So now, I am learning one of life’s less glamorous skills – patience. We have cleaned up. By the Grace of God, we have a person willing to help us clear the last spot needing clearing in our yard, a young man, experienced in tree work, the son of a friend. God truly works in wonderful ways.
We still have a big tree problem, this huge fallen tree in three backyards, hanging over us like the Sword of Damocles. I listen to my more experienced friends; they are all pragmatic. They say a variety of different words, all of which mean “Patience. This will take time.”
Finally, a disaster has been declared in our county. It took a week. FEMA, an organization which at one time was a shining light in our governmental policies, able to respond quickly and efficiently to disasters, is now hamstrung by cutbacks in personnel, funding and political machinations. Who and how they can help has changed. It hurts my heart that aid and lucrative contracts seem to be easily come by, while hands on help to those who need it most desperately, is very slow.
People talk about the blue tarps. In earlier years, almost immediately, trucks would go around giving out free blue tarps to homes with roof damage, to prevent more damage until the roofs could be repaired. We would fly into Pensacola and see entire areas with blue tarp roofs. I have seen a lot of roof damage inflicted by Hurricane Isaias; I have yet to see even one blue tarp. Such a simple necessity that can prevent so much more expense. Where are the tarps?
Neighbors are helping neighbors. Our neighbors who share our hanging tree are being wonderful. Everyone (except me) seems to understand that it will be fixed, and that it will take time. We are not a high priority. Intellectually, I can understand that. Emotionally . . . I am practicing patience. I am learning to practice to be patient. In some areas, I am a slow learner.
I have a small white sock on my buffet; it is a remnant of the load of wash I did for my granddaughter. They will be here for dinner tomorrow night and she can pick it up then. We are also working on a quilted holder for her Bedazzled work; I don’t know who is having more fun, her in eagerness for the container or me, in the design and making of it.
As soon as they got their electricity back, we lost our water, for hours, and when it came back, it was all brown. Finally, it ran clear, but it came also with a “Boil water” notice from our utility. I am reminded of Tunis, and Jordan back in the day, when boiling water was a normal part of life, and we had a big water purifyer called a Puro that we filled with boiling water and it filtered it all through large chalk filters.
Yesterday, after six days of sunshine and no wind, another smaller storm moved in and we waited for the other shoe to drop.
A lot of clean-up has been done. We are waiting for the disposal teams to come by and pick up debris. Meanwhile, the trees, grids, and water system still have invisible damage; changes in weather are likely to bring more unanticipated consequences.
Energy Lag
First, the good news – our son and his family, and more residents, are gaining electrical power. When I heard my daughter-in-law’s voice, saying, “We have electricity!” she bordered on giddy, the same emotion Adventureman and I shared when we heard the first click, our air conditioner coming on.
This morning, I emptied the dishwasher, folded my granddaughter’s laundry, fed all the cats and did some picking up. I planned to go to Chapel at my granddaughter’s school and then swim, but this morning I am tired and a little achy. I’ve been so pleased with my fitness level, and now I wonder if some of that wasn’t boosted by adrenaline. The picking up of debris seemed endless.
AdventureMan and I are luckily on track – we are both very concerned about our huge horizontal tree. We haven’t heard back from our preferred tree service. Our neighbor’s yards are full of our tree, and while we know, legally, it is their problem, this very large task really needs to be attacked by experts. One woman on Nextdoor was approached by one of the tree services and provided a quote of $26,000 for the removal of her tree. $26,000.
Lifelong Pensacolians tell us to wait; these are post-hurricane predators who move in to take advantage of the situation will fade away and prices will start coming down.
On the other hand, we fear a strong wind could bring this tree rolling towards our house, or the trees propping it up could fail, and the tree could roll towards our house. It seems risky to leave it in place, and yet we don’t want this tricky removal to be handled by amateurs.
This is what it feels like when the excitement of the storm ends, and our bodies and minds have to deal with the realities. In contrast, dealing with all the debris is doable and mind-numbing.
The crown of the tree, most of the leafy branches are down in our neighbor’s yard.
Legally, it is his responsibility. As good neighbors, however, we will work together. Right now the heavy branches anchor the tree in place; if those are taken off first, the trunk is free to roll. The trunk is tightly wedged, putting pressure on the other oaks; that area is clearly our responsibility. The heaviest part of the trunk is about twenty feet over our other neighbor’s yard. We need to fix this.
My house helper just asked me if we had noticed any problem with the water. We haven’t. The boil water notice ended last night and we stopped worrying about water. But when I checked, we barely have any water pressure at all, an unexpected happenstance.
So many post-storm occurrences. We know it will all be better, but meanwhile schools remain closed while they are inspected for safety. The school bus drivers can’t even get into some neighborhoods that are still blocked by trees down. AdventureMan left his famous fresh-baked biscuits for our mail carrier; she told us she still can’t deliver to the area behind our house because of street blockages and lines still down.
Unequal Restoration of Power
We had a celebration breakfast this morning for our restoration of power. Schools are closed today, the Y was closed in the morning, County and State work was limited so we had a free day and AdventureMan did a BIG breakfast, with his famous biscuits, fried potatoes, sausages and eggs-to-order.
In the middle of breakfast, our son and his wife received messages that their power would not be restored until Wednesday, while almost every Florida Power customer in Escambia was told it would be restored no later than 5 today. They were so disappointed, flummoxed. Going without electricity and internet gets old in a hurry.
Florida Power sent out the following notice to customers, and I believe it is a very fine, honest and open piece of communication describing the enormous probles restoring the electrical grid after a hurricane of this size:
| Crews continue working around the clock to restore power following Isaias. Restoration is essentially complete in Bay, Holmes, Jackson, Okaloosa, Washington and Walton counties. Our focus remains on Escambia and Santa Rosa, where tree damage was more severe and widespread than initial assessments showed. By the end of today, we expect to restore power to most affected customers in Escambia and Santa Rosa, including all schools, hospitals and other critical facilities. We expect to essentially complete restoration in the remaining hardest-hit areas by end of day Tuesday, Oct. 13, for customers who can safely receive power. We know every additional hour without power is difficult. For the latest update, view your personalized outage information. You may not see crews nearby because they may be repairing parts of the energy grid miles away that must be restored first. Some homes and businesses may have damaged customer-owned electrical equipment that must be repaired by a licensed electrician before we can safely restore power. After service is restored, some customers may experience outages or flickers as crews identify and repair additional storm damage. Please keep safety your top priority. Stay far away from downed power lines, flooding and debris, and follow guidance from local emergency officials. We appreciate your patience and won’t stop working until power is restored to every customer. Stay safe. |
As disappointing as this news is – the damage in our beautiful, treacherously treed area is extensive. Street after street is blocked by fallen trees, still. Many of these trees brought down power lines. Many of the poles were snapped in half!
It is 6:15 p.m. and our garbage was just picked up. Such is the service oriented attitude of all these employees, working so hard to get Pensacola back to normal as quickly as possible.
We’ve told our family they are welcome to come over, hang out while charging up their phones and computers, and to take hot showers here, even bring their laundry. We expect they’ll take us up on it.
Stronger than Isaias: Pensacola Strong
The second morning after Isaias, I am up early and concerned because my phone is on red. My gas tank is full, and I need, really NEED, coffee, so I plug my car charger in and head to the Apple Market. The Apple Market is closed! The generator is on, and there is a sign saying they will open at 9 with food and hot meals for all. I am more relaxed today. The first day after the storm, I think I was too stunned and overwhelmed, it was hard for me to take photos of all the damage. It felt hurtful. Today, things are looking better.
I drive around; I need more time for my phone to charge, and it is a gorgeous day, and there are trains of electrical rigs and their crews gathering in and about my neighborhood and we are ready to cheer.
Yesterday was all about cleaning out enough of the tree fall and detritus for the electrical crews to be able to get to work; the clean up is not complete, but enough that the crews are out in force. I am not in a hurry to get back to work raking, bending and picking up boughs and logs and hauling it to the pile, but AdventureMan will be up soon and I need to get home and the phone is mostly charged.
Its a terrible photo; I am on the main road, there are cars behind me and I know I shouldn’t be taking this photo but the subject is graphic and illustrative. What you see is a very large tree tangled in electrical wires, those silvery lines running top left to center. This is everywhere. That’s why the storms are so expensive, the amount of time and labor it takes to clear the wreckage and put the electrical system back in order. These people are our heroes!
Back home, AdventureMan sets the priorities; I am mostly manual labor. He is raking; I am bundling into barrels and hauling to the debris pile. The barrels are not heavy, just full of leaves and twigs and all the junk that keeps falling out of the stressed and damaged trees. We love our trees, and this is the price we pay – picking up after them.
As we continue to clear our back patio area and drive, we see electrical rigs at our near corner. AdventureMan goes over to say hello and is told that we should have electricity again within 24 hours. That is great news.
By one, we have made significant progress, and feel good about stopping and going over to the Apple Market to see what they have for a hot meal. There is a parking spot by the noisy generator, and we don’t complain, that noisy generator is what allows the Apple Market to be open. That, and their continual commitment to the community. Locally owned, carrying a lot of local products, the Apple Market has a crew that is committed and loyal. They are there in full force. Every check out has a cashier, and the food area is well staffed.
The coffee shop is closed. That would be really bad, I really needed coffee, and here is what the Apple Market did. They brewed coffee, put out real cream (in a bucket with ice) and sugar and gave it to their customers for FREE, with an apology that the coffee shop was not open. All I needed was coffee, and there it was, and nicely done. I was so grateful. Coffee never tasted so good.
We had hit between breakfast and main meal time, I picked up a chicken and waffle sandwich and AdventureMan had biscuits with pork sausage and bacon and laughed, he who eats little meat enjoying two porks in one meal. And said it was delicious. I had never had a chicken and waffle sandwich before, and it was also delicious. Perspective is so important, don’t you think? And hard labor makes you really hungry, and when you are really hungry, food just tastes good!
We have decided to take the rest of the day off. We are happy with our accomplishments. I am in here trying to summarize what we (all) have been through and the impact of the storm, while AdventureMan takes a snooze. My little Zenobia is sleeping on my feet, just so happy for a peaceful, relaxed moment.
Post hurricane can be really, really bad. In this case, yesterday was stunningly overwhelming, just facing all the damage and all that will need to be done just to get back to normal.
Today is a gorgeous day. People are more neighborly, more supportive post-hurricane. If it were raining – and it often is, post-hurricane, it is more of a mess. The weather is also cooler; this morning was in the 60’s, and that is really helpful for heavy outdoor labor. We are sleeping well at night with no air conditioning, windows open.
At the non-operational streetlights, people are civil. They are taking turns. On the side streets, people are being more courteous, not honking (much) and giving way when we have to accomodate trees in the road kind of driving.
All of these are not-so-small blessings. The texts flying back and forth “Are you OK?” “Did you have much damage?” “Would you like to come stay with us?” are so reassuring. We are a community and we are looking after one another. I can’t wait to see the Grafitti Bridge. Someone will paint something wonderful reminding us we are “Pensacola Strong.”
Isaias: The Overwhelming Aftermath
We are both up early the next morning, carrying our lanterns as our house is still very dark. AdventureMan’s first goal is to get the shutters open so we have daylight, and mine is to clear the driveway so our son and grandson can come help us with some large boughs which were blown down. Below is the first thing we see, the bottom of a very large tree overhanging our neighbor’s yard to the left. It is wedged between two trees in our far back yard in the middle, and most of the branches and tree top have fallen into our neighbor’s on the right. We couldn’t figure out where the tree came from, and then discovered it was one of our trees. The wind had lifted it, twisted it and somehow it became wedged between two other trees and hangs in the air like a teeter-totter. A very lethal teeter-totter. We call our Arborist, a tree specialist with special equipment – this removal will be tricky. And expensive.
But first, we scan the nearby neighborhood. As we are walking, our neighbor catty-corner across the street comes over to ask about damage; we assure her we are fine. She is also fine. This is the first hurricane after the death of her husband, and she weathered it alone and has no damage, not even water in her basement. We did a happy dance.
An early morning walker comes along, one we know, and she says “Do you smell gas?” which we did. We can’t figure out where it is coming from so I call the gas emergency number where I leave a message with their automated service. A couple hours later I get a call back and gas people show up and find the leak at one of our neighbor’s house where a tree had broken his gas pipe when it fell.
Around the corner I can see where a huge tree has uprooted and fallen on another neighbor’s house. It doesn’t look backly damaged, but I later learn the tree penetrated the house, and if anyone had been in the part where the tree landed, they might not have survived.
I first met most of my neighbors during Hurricane Sally. We all wave as we come and go, but now we are having real conversations, all of us outside cleaning up.
Cleaning up. It’s like a major move. You look at all the pieces, everything that needs to be done, and it is overwhelming. You look down the street, and see a big tree down totally closing off the street. You see live power lines down on the street (we reported the one close to us, and crews appeared almost immediately to clear it from the street.) We know better than to go near a live wire. All around us, the streets are full of boughs and leafy debris. We clean the worst off the street so traffic can pass. We work together.
It’s bizarre to have such a beautiful morning following the horrifying winds.
The hugeness, the enormity of all that needs to be done saps your will. We work for a while, eating that elephant one small bite at a time, and slowly, slowly, we see progress. The shutters are open, and the bands stowed away. The drive is cleared enough to be passable.
Our son brings his chainsaw, and he and our grandson cut a heavy limb into 2 foot pieces; Public Sanitation won’t pick up larger peices. Even these 2 foot logs are heavy, and they carry them to the debris pile. We are so grateful for their help, and the heavy duty chainsaw breaks. It did its job. We’ll buy him a new one for Christmas if it has totally kicked the bucket.
While we are cleaning, the National Guard arrives, doing what they are trained to do, help people who have been hit by emergencies. They are doing an initial survey of loss, making a quick list of priorities. The trees have to be cleared off the roads before the power teams can come in. Major streets are blocked, and the fallen trees have taken down power lines as they fell. Hundreds of power lines down. Thousands of National Guards people here to help, and we are so thankful for their presence.
The job isn’t done by a long shot, but it’s all we can manage for today. We have light, and our drive is passable, and the largest boughs are stacked on the debris pile. Our son and grandson head home; they still have a lot to do, and they have a fence that blew over in places.
It’s past lunchtime, and AdventureMan and I decide to see how clear the streets are and what kind of damage has been inflicted outside our neighborhood.
There is SO much damage. Trees ripped out of the ground, blocking the major roads. A BMW is stuck under a tree, and we wonder, “Was this guy out driving during the hurricane and had a tree fall on him, or was he driving shortly after the hurricane and did not see the tree fallen on the road and crashed into it?” With no streetlights on, it is a possibility.
When we come to the first stoplight, it is not operating. People are all of a sudden very civil and polite now, and take turns going through. In the commercial center, there is no electricity. It is Saturday, and nothing is open, not even the service stations – they can’t run without electricity. We decide it is safer to head back home, and as we do, we come across a local Greek food truck just on the verge of opening, “Five minutes!” he calls out and we wait. As we wait, five more cars drive up and when the truck opens, they have more business in one hour than they will normally have in a day.
When we stop, they only have one meal to sell, lamb gyro and Mediterranean salad, so lamb gyro and salad it is. AdventureMan doesn’t eat lamb. He did today, and said it was great. The salad was wonderful; I have been worried about not eating enough vegetables, but this meal was perfect. Everyone behind us also ordered lamb gyro and salad, thankful to get a hot meal. Most people in the area do not have electricity.
The drive home is awe inspiring, in a very depressing way. So much damage. So much work to be done. Pensacola knows how to deal with storms, but Pensacola is not the richest place in Florida, and all this extra work will stretch the budget in very negative ways. Just paying the cleanup will hurt other public services.
On Scenic, a sparkle. The Apple Market, a locally owned IGA store, is open! They have a huge, noisy Generac. They have electricity! The cars are rolling in; Apple Market has hot meals and some of the best groceries in town. We text our son and his family so that they know, too. Everyone loves the Apple Market.
Once home, it is time for a nap, and then we are out once again, trying to clear debris. AdventureMan spots a dark jungly section of our yard where there is more damage, more limbs down, more trees to assess for safety, and he gets us on the list with the local arborist. We will need specialists and special equipment to get our horizontal floating tree taken down. It won’t come cheap, but our flying tree is also endangering two of our neighbors’ yards.
Dinner is peanut butter sandwiches. We read briefly, and then, like folk in the olden days, lights are out and we are fast asleep after a long day of physical labor.
Full Suitcase a WOW
I’m researching an upcoming trip and wanted an address for the Unter den Linden Museum in Colmar, a city we visited a few times as a young family. I found a rabbit hole. I found a blog called Full Suitcase.com, and I have been there for a couple of hours, learning all the things I need to see (in a few short hours) in Colmar.
The article I looked up is called 15 BEST THINGS TO DO IN COLMAR, FRANCE (+MAP & TIPS FOR YOUR VISIT); you can visit it for yourself by clicking on the link. I skip around a lot, but this article kept me riveted. She takes or uses the most lush, gorgeous photos I have ever seen. It appears she and her family always visit her destinations on the perfect day.
The article on Colmar covers all the things I want to do, and it rings true to me, based on our own prior visits as a family.
But the section that impelled me to write this article was her section on Alsatian foods. Her food photos are also gorgeous. You feel like you could reach right into the photo and eat the food.
This is a photo of a dish I don’t even like! Choucroute Alsacienne, full of fatty meats and sauerkraut, but I swear, I’d give it a try if it really arrived at my table looking this good:
And here is what gave me a smile. Look at this “Alsatian Crepe”. The translation is “Galette Sarasin.” When I look at it, I see something that looks very much like my favorite street food in Tunis, Tunisia, North Africa, called Brik. It is mad with a very thin batter, not poured, but popped from a hand over and over on a skillet shaped like an overturned wok. Each pop leaves a thin, delicate skim of dough, and enough pops create a thin fragile skin in which a mostly cooked egg, or tuna, or egg and tuna are placed and then quickly wrapped.
So this crepe is some kind of hybrid. Crepes are made with a thin batter, but poured and swirled, not popped by hand by a skillful granny. And it makes me wonder how this thin, fragile pancake-like meal travelled; I’ve eaten it from the Middle East through North Africa to France. But look at the texture – it looks very thin, very fragile!
This is from her About section: “Full Suitcase was founded in 2015 by travel writer Jurga Rubinovaite and is independently run. The site publishes original, first-hand travel guides and is regularly referenced by international media. Our travel advice has been featured by CNN, BBC, and BBC News World Service, and published online and in print by Lonely Planet and Lonely Planet Kids. We also collaborate with selected travel brands and destinations worldwide.”
I love her work. She is really good at what she does. Go visit her!
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