The Worst Tease
My son texted first thing this morning.
“We had electricity last night for seven minutes before it went back out. Worst tease ever.”
My daughter-in-law is having a good hot shower in AdventureMans Africa-theme bathroom. Hurricanes are good for stripping down the luxuries and showing us the necessities of life.
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.
Isiais Coming In
We lost power just as I was making one last entry. It returned today, Sunday, late in the afternoon. I kept notes, and I will share them with you.
We lost power around 5. It happened slowly. We would lose power for a few seconds, then it would come on again. Even the last time, when we heard the transformer outside our house SNAP!, we had hopes it would come back on. It didn’t.
Here is a blessing. The weather is cool. What really makes it hard is the lack of air conditioning, but the air is cool enough: we are comfortable. With the shutters on and locked, it is very dark, and worse, we cannot see what is happening outside except for glimpses out the corners of our shutters and the back door. We have no internet. The phones are working, and we learn the storm is wobbling toward Destin.
Our phones are all charged, but we don’t want to use them because we may need them – urgently – if we are directly hit. No one really knows. We hear the storm has moved east of us, and later it learn that it hit Destin/Navarre more directly, but the preceding bands of lashing winds and rain hit here earlier in the day and got stronger as the day went on. We learned that the bridge over to Gulf Breeze closed at 3:30, in that old abundance of caution (which we learned is a good way to go when the bridge was badly damaged during Hurricane Sally, and we lost its use for months.)
We have lanterns. They are strong and glaring. The winds speed up and then pick up again. It gets very wild outside; the cats are freaking out, and a loud thump and brushing sound hits the north side of the house, and we know a limb is down, and maybe a power line with it. I go to look out the back door – it is covered with a piece of ballistic mesh, a requirement for houses so that occupants have a way to exit quickly if something violent happens – a treefall directly on the house, a gas explosion, a fire – anything requiring a quick exit.
We can see through the mesh, dimly. The winds are crazy: the trees are twisting, writhing, it is painful to watch. There are no lights at all, no streetlights, no human lights. But something looks weird in our far back lot, and I call AdventureMan,
“I think I see a huge tree sort of hanging horizontally, but maybe I’m not seeing what I think I see. Will you take a look?”
He peers; I point to what I think is one end and the line the maybe-tree is taking. He agrees, and we agree that to go outside to check in the midst of wildly chaotic winds might satisfy our curiosity, but might also kill us. Being people who laugh during the worst times, we speculate on the headlines, like Pensacola couple steps into backyard, killed by falling tree.” Using our wiser judgement, we stay inside.
The winds are over by nine. It is very, very quiet. No cars are going by. There are no streetlights. There are no lights in any of our near neighbors’ houses; there is a light farther up the street where someone has started up a generator.
The stress is over, as we are exhausted. There is no electricity, no internet. We can read by lantern light, but we are tired from the stress, from all the preparations, so we turn out the light early and are asleep as our heads hit the pillows. We are thankful this day is over, and more than a little afraid of what we will find tomorrow.
Awaiting Landfall
I usually swim on Friday mornings, really early so I can get on with my day. I didn’t set my alarm last night, just figured I would sleep until I couldn’t sleep and get up, so I was about an hour behind my normal, but not bad. It was raining when I stepped outside, enough so that I wanted to have a coat on.
The pool was packed! It was like everyone wanted to swim because we never knew when we might see the pool open again. Hurricane Sally, six years ago, changed a lot of things, and helped us never take anything for granted again. I just did a short swim so I could go home and help AdventureMan finish closing up the shutters. Once the final shutter is closed, it is very dark inside.
While I was at the pool, Hurricane Isaias increased to a level 3 hurricane. AdventureMan was already out fixing the last of the shutters. I had thought maybe the shutters were overkill, but once we learned Isaias was now level 3, we were glad to have them. Our house looks like a fortress now.
We closed out our checklists and went to lunch. AdventureMan was kidding me about doing one last load of laundry, but . . . you never know what is coming next. It might be a while before I can do laundry again. We were at Mama Tacos, up on Olive, and crew after crew of big electrical vehicals pulled in and they all met up for lunch.
And when we got back, the house was dark, and we had no electricity. The rain had increased, we could hear someone running their generator, and I called Florida Power and told them we had an outage. I don’t know what magic spell they incanted, but we had our electricity back within 15 minutes. I kind of laughed to myself, I thought it would take longer because they were all eating at Mama Tacos. We took Scenic on our way home, and at the intersection of I-10 and Scenic we saw a hotel with at least fifty electric rigs, all present to take care of the damage Isaias is expected to inflict.
I decided to take a bath, not knowing when I might bathe again. AdventureMan came in to visit me as I bathed and looked a little lost. I asked what was up, and he told me he’d completed his list, he knows he shouldn’t be out on the road, it is time to settle in for what is to come, but he is restless and feels like he should be DOING something. I’m hoping he will take a good nap 😊.
Here’s the latest map I can find:
And in twenty four hours, it should be over.
Anxiety and Hurricane Prep
Hurricanes are instructive. They don’t go where they are supposed to go. They wobble. You can prepare like crazy, and they go somewhere else. Today, Pensacola is preparing. Here is today’s forecast. Where the map explodes is Pensacola.
The last time Pensacola was struck by a hurricane was Hurricane Sally. She was supposed to go to Alabama, but at 2 in the morning, big surprise, she hit Pensacola.
Early this morning, they filled their tanks (so did I).
By eight in the morning, the parking lot at the local Publix was full! I had to park in the outside ring
AdventureMan had picked up most of what we needed at the commissary; I just needed a few additional supplies:
Apples, snow peas, and cookies at Buy one-Get one. I bought enough to share with the neighbors or any family that might drop in,
We spend the rest of the morning closing the steel shutters:
Very sturdy, and they let in some light, but the inside gets really dark when the shutters are on.
“Eau de toilette”, in case we have no water.
Our granddaughter was out of school early, so we picked her up for lunch and an afternoon together.
Even by noon, rumors are making their rounds that the storm will fade almost as quickly as it hits land, people are looking much more relaxed.
Booooo! Halloween Comes to the Commissary
In my first year in Pensacola, I bought two big pumpkins for my front porch, hollowed them out, carved expressions on their faces, and put candles inside. They were fabulous – for about two days. After that, large splotches of black mold appeared inside the pumpkins and grew daily. Even before Halloween, they started caving in, and while they looked funny, they were also disgusting, and I had to throw them away. I’ve never carved a pumpkin since.
It’s still more than 6 weeks away, but Halloween seems to show up earlier every year. The commissary started in late August, and now has a full display of pumpkins, even pumpkins I had never imagined.
And my very favorite kind of pumpkin, available only in season at the Hot Spot Barbecue 😊:
Everyday Heroes Teach Our Children
I live in a state with one of the worst education systems in the country. I live in a county in that state that has one of the highest proportions of children under the poverty line in our schools. I work in one of the poorest schools in the county as a volunteer. With great pride, I say, “I am a laminator.”
With great laughter, my grandchildren call out, “See you later, laminator!”
I LOVE laminating. I get to operate this hot shot machine, and I get to see materials our teachers are using to teach our children. With my graduate degrees, I still have a lot to learn. Last year, laminating, I learned the properties of minerals. Yesterday, I was reminded of the critical components of fiction.
I love the school, which this past year earned an award for its test score improvements. I love the children, so fresh, so adorable, so full of energy. The librarian sings “Bye Bye Butterfly” waving her arms, and all the eager kindergarteners sing loudly and wave their arms, too. “See you soon, big baboon” makes them laugh their heads off. They are fully engaged. They are learning what a baboon looks like. With any luck at all, this year they will get a field trip to the nearby zoo.
Most of all, I love these brave heroes who work in our schools. Our state has policies which seem anti-public education. The state supports vouchers for private schools that show no accountability, and the state is proposing we lower or eliminate property taxes, further indenturing our local governments to the poohbahs in control of our state house of representatives, the state senate, and the state governor. The state has placed on the ballot a proposition to make the school superintendent of schools an elected office, not an office selected by the Board of Education, not going through any vetting process, but making the Superintendent of Education a popularity contest.
In a county known for banning more books in the schools than any other county in the United States, we NEED professionals at the highest levels.
By the grace of God, we already have them in the classrooms at the school where I volunteer. Our teachers are educated, trained, and mentor one another. They are busy at the beginning of the year laying out strict boundaries to keep the education process flowing productively. They are gathering our youngsters, corralling them, teaching them civil behavior, and best practices to achieve the standards which will propel them upwards through the system.
These teachers and administrators are planners, and their good planning gives daily examples to the students of how to succeed – in school, and in life. They live their truth. They demonstrate self-restraint, humility, humor, and toughness. They give their students the tools to succeed. They give them the basics; the ABC’s, the maths, and they polish the rough edges and develop their social skills.
With little thanks, they get up early to be at school to greet the students with a smile, even joy, so early in the morning.
These are my heroes. Their reward is touching and changing lives.
These heroes are in every school in our county, educating our citizens of tomorrow.
Pray for them, my friends, that their burden be light and that the Spirit refreshes them as they face their daily teaching responsibilities and challenges. They do the Lord’s work, welcoming the stranger, teaching the children to be kind to one another, helping them treat one another with respect and civility, how to take turns, how to make room for differences, and the fundamentals of democratic society. God bless the work of their hands!
The Gift That Keeps on Giving
WordPress provides a prompt question every day and occasionally, I can’t resist. Todays is about the best purchase I ever made.
We were at a transition point in our lives, leaving the military, facing a temporary geographic separation (AdventureMan off to Saudi Arabia) and he said to me something I’ve always loved, that I’ve been a good wife and to buy a house any where I wanted.
I knew where that would be. I had a clever Mom who, every time I visited her, had set up a realtor to show us condominiums. She always said it was so that when they downsize, they would understand the options, but I also believe she had another agenda – to show me the options. Or so I suspected; my Mom often held her cards close to her chest and I would have to guess at her intentions. Whether or not she intended, she did sell me on the location.
AdventureMan drove one of our cars across the country and spent two days looking at options. He came back excited.
Then when he came back, we packed out everything we intended to keep and sent it to storage. Adventureman departed for Saudi Arabia and I kept working until our house sold, then moved temporarily to an apartment. I looked at a slew of places, and bought a house that looked very boring, but in the community I loved .
The house wasn’t as boring as it looked. What made it look boring was the wall-to-wall beige carpeting. Before I moved in, I had it all ripped out and had natural oak wood floors installed. It seemed horrendously expensive but it had a WOW factor – the house looked gorgeous.
I lived in the house for two years, AdventureMan and I having telephone dates and him dropping into town every few months for conjugal visit, LOL. Then, he got permission for me to live with him in Saudi Arabia.
We rented out the house. We’ve rented it out all these years, only one change in renters, never a single vacant month. I love the house still, and it was the best investment we ever made.
Within a few years, rental income had paid off the mortgage. Every year since then is gravy. We visit the renters now and then to check on the house; they are doing a good job at protecting those beautiful floors. They’d like to buy the house, but we have promised it to our son, who loves it too.
By far, the best purchase we ever made.
Education: Florida Ranks LAST in United States
My husband and I volunteer at a public elementary school. The teachers and administrators are heroes, battling a cynical Republican administration that increasingly limits public spending on education and local initiatives. This is a heartbreaking but accurate indictment. I ask myself why an administration would NOT want an educated population?
Florida schools rank last in new national report
ALAIJAH CROSS, TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT
Tue, June 23, 2026 at 4:06 AM CDT
Among other national education research institutions, the Network for Public Education ranked Florida last for its lack of commitment and support for public schools.
The network, a nonprofit advocacy group that promotes and researches policies supporting traditional public schools, has evaluated and held states accountable for how public education is managed and upheld.
With scores up to 100, each state was evaluated based on privatization, school finance, and student and teacher supports.
“The grades in this report are not merely academic assessments influenced by demographics or changing test standards. They are a measure of how seriously each statehouse takes its obligation to the children who attend public schools within its borders,” says the report, released through a press release.
Florida earned an F, with 14 out of 100 possible points earned.
“The states most aggressively redirecting public funds toward private alternatives were also the states most neglectful of their public schools, their teachers, and their students. Privatization and disinvestment, it turns out, go hand in hand,” the report adds.
Florida has steered billions in taxpayer funding to private school programs with limited oversight, a policy critics say disenfranchises public schools and the communities they serve.
Proponents contend that private school programs increase educational choice and competition, potentially improving outcomes for students and families seeking alternatives to traditional public schools.
A lawsuit filed by the Florida Education Association against the State Board of Education argues that traditional public schools must comply with a growing set of laws governing safety, staffing, student services, facilities and finances, while charter and private schools receiving public funds operate under significantly fewer requirements.
FEA President Andrew Spar said the last straw which prompted legal action was the 2026 legislative session.
“We saw bills that were going to address the massive teacher and staff shortage, address the pay and equity gaps that exist, address the funding inequities we have between public schools, charter schools and private schools; and lawmakers didn’t act on any of those,” Spar previously told the Tallahassee Democrat in May at a press conference.
Including Florida, 17 states received F grades, 13 states received B grades and 13 additional states earned a C grade. Seven states were scored a D and only two states earned an A, Nebraska and Vermont.
The report says: “States that most aggressively expand vouchers and charter schools are the same states that underfund their public schools, underpay their teachers, and provide the weakest protections for students. Our analysis found what statisticians consider a moderate/strong relationship with a probability of occurring well beyond chance between the expansion of irresponsible ‘choice policies.’ ”
Florida lawmakers reached an agreement May 29 on a $115 billion state budget, boasting a total of $21 billion in funding for education at a time when critics are calling out the state for chronically underfunding public schools.
For example the base student allocation, which is also considered “per student” funding, increased by $85, from roughly $8,900 to about $9,000.
After rising expenses, however, some say it isn’t an increase at all. With rising health insurance, supply costs and labor, advocates say the increase should be at least $1,000 per student.
Spar said the budget “ignores the needs of hurting communities.”
Florida has now ranked at the bottom of several national research reports on education, including the National Education Association’s listing on teacher pay, and the Education Scorecard’s state-by-state analysis on academic achievement.
“It’s no surprise that a failing woke institution would rank Florida, a national leader in education, last whenever possible,” a state education department spokesperson previously told the Tallahassee Democrat in response to its low ranking on the Education Scorecard in May.
Robert Reich: Freedom Summer 2026
Robert Reich shares an idea for hope in a shocking season of gerrymandering. Win anyway, by registering voters. Michelle Obama would say “we go high”:
Friends,
Yesterday I spoke with Tennessee state representative Justin Jones, one of the nation’s young Black leaders who’s been a rising star in Tennessee politics, about the Supreme Court’s shameful April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Jones told me that, at Trump’s urging, Tennessee Republicans had prepared a redistricting map even before the Court announced its decision. Then, despite pleas from Black voters and voting rights advocates, the white Republican legislators moved their meeting to another room without allowing the public in to watch, passed the new map out of committee, and enacted it within 24 hours.
The new map has eliminated Tennessee’s one remaining Democratic district around Memphis, a city of about 610,000 people, about two-thirds of whom are Black — by cracking it into three majority-white district, one stretching hundreds of miles. The map has also divided Nashville, another city with a Black majority, into five white-majority districts.
Jones described Tennessee house speaker Cameron Sexton as the “grand wizard in chief,” explaining that “that’s what they want to do. They want to create a process that is unfair and unequal.”
Other Southern states have joined Tennessee’s rush to redistrict.
Louisiana’s governor has ordered that the state’s ongoing congressional election be set aside while state lawmakers redraw maps to eliminate a Democratic-majority – that is, a Black-majority – seat covering Baton Rouge.
At Trump’s request, Alabama Republicans have approved legislation directing the governor to schedule new primary elections this year under a GOP-friendly map that would end districts represented by Black lawmakers, if courts lift an injunction on its redistricting.
The Mississippi legislature will soon convene in a Confederate-era capitol building that it hasn’t used in 100 years, presumably to eliminate the Democratic majority in the one Mississippi district held by a Black representative.
South Carolina’s Republican majority in the statehouse voted Wednesday to extend its legislative calendar, allowing time to consider whether they should eliminate the state’s sole Democratic-majority, Black-majority district, held by long-serving representative James Clyburn.
Florida was already in a special redistricting session when the Supreme Court announced its decision, enacting a congressional map for its 28 districts that packs Black and brown voters into four districts on the south Florida coast and Orlando, eliminating every other Democratic majority.
“We’re going backwards at warp speed,” Jones told me. “In just over a week, we’ve gone from the 1965 Voting Rights Act back to the era of Jim Crow.”
I asked him what he and other Black political leaders in the South were planning to do.
“There’ll be a lot of litigation,” he said, “but we can’t be optimistic with this Supreme Court.”
“So, what’s the strategy?”
“We need the biggest voter turnout in history this fall. Every Black person, every Brown person, every Democrat, everyone who cares about the moral soul of this nation has to vote for equal voting rights. Take over Congress. Increase our power in state legislatures. This is the only way to respond.”
“I’m with you,” I said, “but I really wonder whether that’s possible.”
“How about a new Freedom Summer?” Jones responded, with a smile. “A multi-racial force of young people fanning out across the South, registering voters, getting them to the polls, just like they did in 1964.”
“I remember. I lost a dear friend in Mississippi Freedom Summer.”
“I have no direct memory, of course,” Jones said. “I was born in 1995, thirty-one years after Freedom Summer. But the South is almost back to where it was then. So, yes, it’s possible. It’s got to be possible.”
I told him I’d share his idea with you, and ask you for your responses.
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Early Voting in Florida
