Fessing up about Sandy

[Amidst all this silliness on my blog, let me say quite seriously that my thoughts and prayers are with those suffering in the Northeast. It appears that the storm was absolutely devastating up there, and it's no laughing matter. These posts are not intended to capitalize on the suffering of others. My mom was exceedingly blessed to have been spared the ravages of this storm, and I am truly thankful. These posts are intended as whimsical, humorous accounts of Doris and my weekend in Virginia, and in no way should be interpreted as callous to the suffering of others.]

True confessions: this trip east never was about Sandy. At least, not until Sandy made it all about Sandy. You see, mom's old HP laptop had gotten kind of slow, barnacle-encrusted, weedy. So, mom asked the kids to select and install a new laptop for her. I was elected the chief laptop setter-upper by my siblings. Consequently, this trip was on the calendar long before Sandy was a butterfly's breath.

As it happens, I just got lucky. Sandy happened to visit the same weekend I did; thus, we got to see one another (from afar, as it turned out).

My big sister says that I am a bad-weather magnet, that I just draw it to me. If that's the case, my bad weather magnet got degaussed last winter. Perhaps I've been "re-gaussed" this winter [is that a word?].

Sandy never did live up to her billing, at least not in Lancaster County, Virginia. Tuesday was a gray, rainy day, little bit of wind, certainly nothing exciting. We took mom out to lunch at Willaby's on the Rappahannock and enjoyed some great seafood.

I finished up the laptop install, and last night said our goodbyes to Rosy the mop dog

This morning we pulled out of Broad Reach about 5:30 AM. It's a long drive anyway, and we weren't sure what we'd find in West Virginia.

I love the drive from Charlottesville west, on Interstate 64 and a short portion on 81. This was just one of the beautiful views from the highway.

As I said, we weren't sure what we'd find in West Virginia. We found snow. It snowed for several hours as we drove through, but it didn't cause any problems for us.

Thankfully the roads themselves were in good shape. Temperature never got below 31 during our drive. We stopped for lunch in Beckley, West Virginia.

So the great Sandy adventure is over, and, for the Cobb clan anyway, all is well. Thank You, Lord.

Parting thoughts: enjoying snow is like eating peanuts. You always want a little more. Just think: snow in October! What wonders does the winter hold in store? Yahoo!

Sandy update #2

Well, maybe Sandy’s not such a wild Virginia woman after all. Here in Broad Reach it’s not been much worse than a long, slow, windy rainstorm. Not yet anyway. I'm thankful for that.

 

Not being partial to telling fibs, I am really, really, trying to mean what I just said, ‘bout being thankful. I’m mostly thankful. Nearly almost completely thankful. Mostly.

I have heard that Sandy has closed the offices of the Federal Government. Maybe we could convince her to hang around for a while. You know, close the guvmint, save money. Leastwise, that’s what I was thinking until I heard that the Feds were stuffing sandbags with dollar bills (stimulus funds, no doubt), so, maybe not.

Local entertainment in Broad Reach centers on another female character, name of Rosy. This here’s Rosy.

 

Rosy is like a super-charged, battery-powered, attention-deficit-disordered mop without a handle, mounted on wheels, whose Ritalin you’ve lost on the same day she ate a whole bag of candy.

 

She’s very playful, and very obedient if you can convince her you really mean it. I’ve not yet been able to convince her.

This is my sweet momma. She rides herd on Rosy, and makes sure I eat my vegetables. Does not seem to matter that I’m 56. Once a mom, always a mom.

This is my big brother. He and Lorraine, a good friend of his, came to be with mom this weekend. Lou and I really enjoy getting together. We’re both working really hard on being thankful that Sandy stayed out to sea and made landfall so far north. You know, birds of a feather, and all that. Lorraine is truly thankful because her house is in a low-lying area of Norfolk and she doesn’t care too much for vacuuming water out of her first floor. Now that I can understand.

Okay, here are the few statistics I can give you. We’ve had slightly over 6” of rain since getting here on Saturday evening. There has been several super-high tides. Check this out below.

 

 The waterway at the bottom of the picture is a state-maintained highway. All the pilings in the center belong to a dock. We are supposed to have wind gusts approaching 70 miles per hour tonight. I frankly don’t believe it, but the county emergency agency called a couple of hours ago to warn us.

Meanwhile, Beckley, West Virginia gets a blizzard. Some folks are just lucky, I reckon.