Early tonight

Resting while staying in today.
Rarely do I have much excitement, in reality my perceived excitement may very well be tame for others.
Escaping a hurricane I suppose was a bit more realistic in the sense that was too very real in the danger department, and was mandatory to leave.

Yesterday, we received the paperwork from FEMA and today it was filled out and mailed.
A bit confusing at first, so Hubby tried calling to ask for clarification and the computerized voice said the wait would be 137 minutes, and so he hung up.

Thankfully amid the magnitude of papers sent in two separate envelopes there was a modicum of decipherable information and so we made copies of the necessary paperwork and got it into the snail mail as it came to us to go out today.

I had given the FEMA agent when I initially called our bank routing information for the reimbursement from the hotel expenses.
And according to what I was told its time frame is within ten days of receipt of all documentation.

Most adventures in life are made due to circumstances desired or beyond our control.
Many of us, myself included hate to give up any control.
But as I have aged I have mellowed in understanding how we at times must do whatever is necessary to be safe.

That said I still worry for so many people who want to be safe, but have little or no options to attain that ability.
Like in the news blurb I just received that "100 percent of Puerto Rico without power as Maria passes over country and causes severe damage infrastructure damage; hurricane downgraded to a Category 3"
www.yahoo.com

I signed up for these newsworthy items to be sent during whatever I am doing online, even while I watch Netflix programming.
Helpful in staying informed.

I figured since I have been relaxing most of today why not take care of my blog early!

PS all three pieces of clothing I bought yesterday, two pairs of slacks and one blouse two sizes smaller than what I had been wearing did fit and had their tags removed, and since have been washed and dried and put away!

On that upbeat note allow me to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you to kindly share all your blessings and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

PSS Pray for all the people in Mexico where the death toll has risen to over two hundred and to our unofficial 51st state Puerto Rico where their fate has yet to be told! As well as all the other islands in Maria's path all need our prayers !

L'Shana Tovah to all my friends and relatives celebrating Rosh Hashanah!

Ahhhhhhhhhh MUNDANE WITHOUT ANY SHAME!

Hubby and I left our mini manse around ten thirty, give or take five, six or seven minutes, and arrived in Punta Gorda at Coastal Dermatology just before ten fifty or there about. Where has all the traffic gone... la., la, la... next month they will be back, and this with catching two red lights, amazing!

The reason for going was for my six month check up with Elisabeth Webber PA, yep you General Hospital fans know the same name as that other nifty sweet kiddo nurse in GH! This one though has only two kids of her own, one of each kind yep a boy just born and a girl with a few years on her so I have been told, ha.
Once the exam was over prescriptions were told that they were to be called in, and my notification for follow-up in six months will be reminded via a phone call.

After there in the same parking lot is Bealls Outlet and a restaurant named Elena's, so Hubby moved the car over closer to the stores and to allow others the ability to use the handicap spot we had be in. I rode over on BIG BLUE; some may wonder why I need a handicap spot, well it is to get her out of the van since handicap spots are larger/wider and she needs a full girth to go in and out, as do I.

In Bealls I found two pairs of black slacks and an electric blue colored blouse, hopefully they will fit.
I cannot maneuver well in even their handicap dressing rooms. So I take things home and try them on and if they don't I exchange them with all tags and receipts in tact.

Lunch in Elena's was interesting they had enlarged it since our last visit, and their décor was unique, a little bit NASCAR with checker board black and white winning flag like tiles on their walls and floral rainbow styled patterns on their bench seats for their tables. Fortunately they also had free standing tables where they could remove a chair for me to pull in to, many were in wheel chairs there, but mad me look like a spring chicken, yep I was the kid again!
Hubby had chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes and extra gravy, I had a cup of soup, stuffed pepper soup, tasted better than you would think, and half make that a quarter of a crab salad on multigrain bread with lettuce and tomato, the other quarter came home, we both had water with lemon, tasty meal and reasonably priced too.

From there we took a drive to the bird sanctuary, but did not get out due to our mission was to see as we drove from Port Charlotte to Punta Gorda and back we looked closely and noticed that everything looked fine, all we saw slightly different was the piles of yard waste, branches and trees down but in an orderly fashioned stacked for pick up, a few had furniture out for pick up too.
Everywhere we went the topics of conversations were: "when did your power go back on?"

Many said the next day, on last Monday, but one 99 year old I met in Publix said just the other day!

After our Punta Gorda trip I had another doctor's appointment/ six month check up and breathing test with my pulmonologist Dr. Kapadia's respiratory therapist Dennis at two P.M. we were early for that by fifteen minutes, but we ran out of things to do in between. At two thirty I was to see the doctor for the results. My medication is working for one thing, but being inactive has suppressed my lung capacity slightly more, only by three points, not too bad and expected.

Finally we made it to our last stop Publix grocery, where only one of my two prescriptions was ready! The other will be in tomorrow; anyway I still have of the missing one left of the old.
We had many list items and expanded on that as we took a leap of faith and replaced our food that we threw out! Freezer items, thus the eating out, now we can cook once again!

Moving on...

As I write tonight my heart sinks with the thoughts of all those people in the islands being slammed by that category five hurricane, our hearts and prayers are with all of them!

The other natural disaster of the earthquake in Mexico is also sadness on my mind, again our hearts and prayers go out to them as well!

And now for our odd duck of a president who seems to find joy and toys with other an unstable government leaders with language meant to incense not calm our nation and theirs...

There are too many disasters created by nature Orange Frothy Haired Guy for you to challenge fate and make a manmade one or more!
We are not paper doll cut outs of people we are living creatures that need to feel safe for real!
This is NOT a pre-scripted reality show; this is our land and our lives, so watch it mister!
That is all!
Be careful!

Happy night to all and share those blessing and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

       
 

"While times may seem difficult your future forecasts a quick turnaround."

 Believe it or not the first fortune I picked up was the one used for the title tonight; I believe to be apropos.
Maybe or maybe not the China City restaurant saved these hurricane appropriate fortunes and decided to generously send Hubby home with seven of them; were they foreseeing the future to be distributed after?
Coincidence I think...ha, who knows!

"To find yourself think for yourself." Rings true, not selfish.

"There is no one so rich that they don't need help or so poor that they cannot help." Interesting adage and also a truism.

"You will be showered with good luck." 2X   Now this is too two much, nah just right for each of us and very nice!

"You are heading for a land of sunshine." Hey, we are already here!
Florida minus hurricanes = the SUNSHINE STATE!

"When you gather all your resources together, goals are accomplished."
Absolutely.

I decided to take a break from hurricane watch on here, but not actually if any of you read my posts on my FB page.

And no we did not over indulge in Chinese food, Hubby ordered a Pu Pu platter and I ordered steamed Chinese vegetables and shrimp, with a large egg drop soup for us to share that gives us leftovers with more leftovers!
So seven fortune cookies was just very nice of them, but we are fairly regulars there.
Not as much as we used to be though.

We are very lucky in Charlotte County we were one of the few of the sixty seven counties in the state where the children were able to go back to school today, and power is mostly back on except for 3% of the county. So stores and traffic lights are all powered too.

My doctors' appointments for the week have been confirmed, I have two, the dermatologist and the pulmonologist and I had one UPS medication delivery today and another FedEx at the end of the week and that makes things seem very much back to normalcy here.

Garbage collection was back to normal last week on Wednesday our normal day, and mail has been everyday since we got home last Tuesday.

Here we are extremely lucky, but many people have homes that were destroyed just miles from here and even on this block there is a house that lost its roof, and south of here in Lee and Collier counties 150, 000 people still do not have power just in those two counties. I believe out of the seven million of us that lost power one million statewide are still without.

Good news for Florida that Hurricane Maria will be curling north away from us, but horrifically is devastating the islands that Irma got too!
Pray for all those people!

Good night to all, and share those blessings and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!  

This is the why...and how, where and when...I did do this for the first time just this year, by the way...

Irma was a historic system that had never ever been seen before, and no one in any realm of life can deny that.

Scary, and a bit of a throwback to a fear of what might have been from personal memories of being in our own home and having it destroyed with us in it. A home bought very cheap at only 55k six years before Hurricane Charley August 13, 2004 did 80K worth of damage to it!
It is true we had had many renovations by then, but still...!

So enormous was the devastation dollar wise, for a miniscule home, square footage wise that we were in shock. And before that there was Andrew when we, myself, Hubby and our sons all while living on the other coast, but way north of where Hurricane Andrew 1992 hit, five and half hours away were able to go down there and help, and so we did. At the time I was working in promotion and knew many people at Hawaiian Tropic and requested of all things sunscreen due to the people losing their homes and being exposed to the elements and we did not want to go there empty handed, while retrieving the couple of pallets of sunscreen the fork lift driver offered us dog food he was a volunteer with the Greyhound pet Association, and we were thrilled and had no idea how much he would donate, but it was two tons, yes that is what he did and we had a trailer for all the items and collected them and brought them down to Homestead then! When we got there it was night time and we were told where to off load the sun screen and so we did. The next stop was to find where to off load the dog food and that turned out to be at a shopping center that took a horrific hit, Campbell Shopping Center, and they had set up a pet MASH unit for pets in what used to be the Humana office, but was condemned for people but okay for animals? The next day we went to look for the Red Cross to see if we could help them, but they had more than enough help and so we went back to see if the vets needed help, and they did. Crazy as it may seem we somehow were put in charge of triage, determining which pets needed help first by being the most seriously injured or ill. It was amazing, exhilarating, and we stayed much longer than we thought we would and made many friends. Were interviewed by all news agencies, local and national. We reunited families and pets, that was the best, and also fostered them out to people who were away from the hurricane area.

That was twenty-five years ago, and after we were able to help we could go home to all our creature comforts.

Any-who, that was major then, and Hurricane Charley was just thirteen years ago and we could not go home from him since we already were home, so much different and that was a realistic fear with Irma too and so thirteen years and about one month later here was Hurricane Irma!

In all the thirty-one years and three homes on both coasts of this state of Florida with all the threatening hurricanes this was the first time we were given the mandatory order to evacuate!
Never before.

So when that happens you must be crazy not to pay attention to any and all news, so yes, all three networks, the weather channel, cnn, weather underground, you name it, and we listened and monitored all of it and passed it on to you! We also live our lives as retirees, and me being disabled, seeing doctors, grocery shopping, cooking, yard work, laundry, going out to eat and shopping and going to whatever things of interest were available locally, and as far as other viewing pleasures, regular TV and Netflix streaming, anything BBC mystery wise for me and Hubby mostly Vampires for him.
So if anyone found my obsessiveness with my blogging about the impending major historical storm and now others that seem to be coming this way or not I seriously believe that is your issue not mine.

Just the title of this blog tells you that! I am SPEAKING MY MIND, not yours.
The map graphics that I have been using have been from:https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/atlantic/2017/hurricane-maria
Weather Underground, and if you have not been to that site you should go and read Jeff Masters blog there. He is quite knowledgeable in all things tropical including hurricanes etc. and has called the actual landings of these things as often as all others in the game of predicting.

Knowledge is Power as per Sir Francis Bacon said way back in 1597 as we all know, but too many improperly have been given credit for it, so I do try to learn from as many available information industries as possible and that are so accessible with the highways and byways of all technologies.

Any-who, below is the most recent five o'clock P.M. today position of now Hurricane Maria, they are still not committing to where she will go as far as if a US landing, sadly the same islands that Irma decimated will be hit again by her, Maria.

So I will calm or jangle my nerves with anyone else who needs to know, but as I reiterate KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, so in this case when we know what is happening then we can do whatever we have to! Ignorance is not BLISS! In these cases it can be very dangerous. PS anyone who lost power and got it back without any other physical damage to their home has no idea what all the people who lost their homes are going through! Just saying...

Now read or look at what I post here or ignore it altogether your choice or just pay attention PLEASE! BE SAFE!

Oh no! Weather weary! And yet we still do not know where she may go? THIS JUST IN: NOT HERE!

Calm down! We all know what to do! If the worse happens...first we must find out if or where she is going, right? RIGHT! This is another wait and watch system. So many weather aspects can change her trajectory. DO NOT PANIC! But pay attention or not, denial can, nah cannot work!
Just stay tuned. I know I will... that is all.
LIGHTNING RARELY STRIKES IN THE SAME PLACE TWICE! Whew! Although we were hit directly by Hurricane Charley! Although, miraculously Irma spared our home though one home on our block lost their roof!
Do this DO NOT USE GENERATORS INDOORS! I am so sorry I had to say that, but apparently there are still people who did not get the memo, and nightly on the news people are dying after the HURRICANE from that, another one of those things like WATCH SMALL CHILDREN NEAR WATER and another one people seem to forget although nightly on the news too, DO NOT LEAVE CHILDREN OR PETS IN HOT CARS!
PLEASE PEOPLE THINK!
Geez, I am so glad I got that out so much anger about those things was building up!
Stupidity knows no boundaries, sex, race, national origin does not matter when these horrors of negligence have been committed!
THIS JUST IN: BOTH THE AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN MODELS ARE SAYING MARIA WILL CURL UPWARD TOWARDS THE NORTH AND NOT HIT FLORIDA! HIP, HIP, HOORAY!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!

As your town crier, NEVER MIND!

That made me exhausted, and so...have a very...

Happy Good Night! (on me.)

And...

Share your blessings and we will too!

Also next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Florida's aftermath

Our state of Florida of enormous size and population has made it once again through another "natural" disaster, battle scarred and missing loved ones, but not unlike the Phoenix will rise again to become the paradise loved by many and as it once was remembered. This was the first time in history that our entire state was bombarded at the same time by one enormous storm 400 miles across and a changing categories from a 5, to a 4, then 3, a 2, and a 1 and occasionally wobbled back and forth as terrorized and it roared through our substantial state!

People helping people is what happens after in these situations, and Floridians are no different each and every time.

Most could nearly declare that they have become proficient in the know how of accomplishing the care and treatment before during and after these things striking.

Frustration, sadly goes with the territory, but just when you reach your limit, surprise... either something positive happens or something... dare I say worse happens that makes the previous problem at the very least not seem as bad?

Other than loss of life and property the lack of food, air-conditioning, gas, ice and water are hardships undeniably for the survivors, the basic needs; is what tests our resolves.

Lines for food and fuel makes one feel the surreal-ness of the situations, as if only extras in an end of the world movie of the next fictional disaster fare!

But no, if only, no this is the current reality here in ninety percent of our state!

At one point seven million households were without power!
Now it is down to two million, five days later, with ninety degrees weather and feels like temperatures of over one hundred!
Mosquitoes are laying eggs, right now!
Sewerage is seeping into waterways, driveways and streets right now!
Rivers are cresting to overflow stages, right now!

And Hurricane Irma has left the state a couple of days ago!

So remember folks as the NEWS lessens its reports nationally know that it is not over here or in Texas and it won't be for not days weeks or months even years!

Helping with sending additionally monies to United Way, Red Cross or any other legit organizations can be of help, or physically volunteer if you can do that too. The news just said United Way will need you.
Most all of us do have insurance though, we do, but many still need help with cleaning up.
But some do not have any insurance and can use your help.

We were very lucky just when Hubby was having difficulty with our second generator the other one was already not working and he went out to try to fix our last and only one, he heard a humming noise next door!
The people had evacuated too and were not back yet when Hubby realized our electric had been restored just in the nick of time!
He did go out and buy the replacement for the defective part today, since you never know what could be next...Hurricane/tropical storm Jose is steering away from Florida, but please friends up north and in the mid-Atlantic states be careful he could be coming there!

Also off the coast of Africa there is #14, a fish storm we are told that could become Lee will circle back into the northern waters not touching any land masses, and then there is #96 that we have already been told is something that will be monitored and it is heading west and north, and her name would be Maria... Geez and not that Westside Story one, darn, since she was nice.

 Ahhhhhhhhhh, Florida, our chosen home for all of us... our sons are safe hours from us in either direction and even Number One had power back the day before us without any damage, so yay!

Folks all be safe and try to always have a happy good night and share those blessings and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Trying hard to get back to...a

Formula for a Return to Normalcy
Tilda Kruegel 2004

We are in flux, but soon we'll be able to return to what we remember as home. Hurricanes have caused all to be in an uncontrollable situation. We must take back that control!

As a state we must reconnoiter all options to regain our strength as a whole entity, train ourselves to be valiant, reclaim what we lost, and make it better.

We can network our knowledge and resources.

We can show compassion for one another in this horrid commonality of misfortune. The old adage is true, misery does love company.

Understanding, first hand, what others have been through gives us all something we can relate to.

A TV show psychologist stated that to cope with such traumas, we must turn emotion into motion. Simply said: do something! Energy should be well spent in a positive, productive way. This way we disallow negative thinking to take over.

And yes, we have plenty to do to accomplish our tangible tasking.

From simple, annoying, repetitive calling of insurance agents and contractors to physically getting in there doing the work to repair or replace.

Life has never been simple, but with a recipe to regain whatever we consider our normalcy, this unreality too will become familiar, bringing us again to what our lives once were.

The above ramblings were written by me after Hurricane Charley ravaged our home and also about the other hurricanes that our neighbors experienced after the Summer of the Storms.

It was printed/published in the book of the above name, "Summer of the Storms", by Peace River Center for Writers that I belonged to then.