Florida Hurricane Season Notes

We're about to enter the peak of the hurricane season. Any day now, you're going to turn on the TV and see a weather person pointing to some radar blob out in the Gulf of Mexico and making two basic meteorological points:

(1) There is no need to panic.
(2) We could all be killed.

For the rest of this hilarious Dave Barry article in the Miami Herald in 2001, click here.

Hurricane Season

I'm starting to freak out about hurricane season, which starts June 1. Everyone is. We still have blue tarps covering the roof, because the roofers are still too busy repairing last year's damage to keep up with the demand. The local newspaper reminds us that another storm will finish us off. They tell us to stock up now on plywood, candles, lanterns, generators and packets of mayonnaise. They print recipes for Ramen noodles and peanut butter. Some people already have their shutters up.

This is not bad advice, considering the fact that four hurricanes hit Florida in 2004. Two of them, three weeks apart, were direct hits for us. Note the paths of Frances and Jeanne. Oh, and Jeanne was the cruel one. Notice how she pretended to head off into the North Atlantic, then circled back around and slammed right into us as a Category 3.

The scorching heat is already here. The afternoon thunderstorms are already here. The 100% humidity is already here. Hurricane season is upon us. Am I ready? Hardly. I know that when a storm begins to make its way across the Atlantic I'll be glued to the weather reports. Fear will set in. Then panic. Then I'll rush around madly, filling the tub with water, making ice, bringing in loose objects, stocking up on beer, organizing all the screws in the garage...a total nervous wreck! Wait, the shutters! Make more ice! Scrounge for batteries, because by now you can't find any for sale within 200 miles. Did I make enough ice? Oh, God! Bottled water...do we have enough bottled water? Where are the cats? Make more ice.

It's even worse when you've been through one before, because you already know how awful it is. If you haven't been through one, you cannot relate. This year I might even try some weed for my nerves. Then again, that might make me paranoid, and I already have that wrapped.

Frances stalled off our coast and took 18 hours to pass through. The damage was unbelievable. We lost all of the tree canopy in our yard. Huge limbs were snapped off like matchsticks. The entire tops of two trees blocked both the front and back doors. We were without power for 9 days with Frances, only 4 with Jeanne. Cold showers didn't bother me too much, considering the overwhelming heat. Lines for gas bothered me. No traffic lights at the intersections bothered me. The neighbors' noisy generators bothered me (and made me envious). Having to venture out on roads full of debris, downed power lines and no traffic lights to scrounge for food bothered me.

Those were old mango trees, 40' high, which shaded the whole back yard. Now only the main trunks are left standing. Lying across the back is a 65' bamboo which was ripped right out of the ground. The root mass is 12' high!

No, I'm not ready at all.

Meet My Alligator

Feel like laughing a little? How about giggling like a Japanese schoolgirl? Check out Longmire Does Romance Novels, for altered covers of the popular books. Be sure to check out the reader submissions too. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Begonia of the Week

Begonia goegoensis, with its round, green-bronze, quilted peltate leaves, was discovered on the island of Goego, in Sumatra, in 1881. It's a rhizomatous form that can be grown in a terrarium, but if you give it 50-60% humidity it will survive indoor conditions. The ideal temperature range is 70°-75°, but mine has experienced daytime highs in the 90's to nighttime lows in the 40's and didn't drop a leaf. However, this one requires a bit more attention to its ambient conditions than most. I have a weakness for peltate leaves, and B. goegoensis is one of the most exotic-looking that I grow.

They say that the number of species lost forever is greater than all the species that have been discovered in the past or will be found in the future. Some species in cultivation are already extinct in the wild, so growing, propagating and sharing them is a way to prevent them from disappearing.

A Bit of Heaven

A beautiful shot taken by Colin, a photographer living in the Scottish Highlands, who has taught me a lot about his fellow countryman, George Galloway.

You can see more of Colin's world on his blog.

Gallery of the Absurd

This illustration of Paris Hilton is from Gallery of the Absurd, by a hugely talented artist/cartoonist/caricaturist who calls herself Fourteen (14).

She always wanted to be a comic book artist, and here, in the pages of a glossy tabloid full of stalking paparazzi photos, catty commentary and the exposed bloated excess of celebrity existence, she had finally found the material to amuse and inspire her.

Phil Spector Got Fugged!

Oh, Holy Moly!  This weirdo has been indicted for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson.  Two of my musician friends knew her well when they lived in L.A. and said that she was a lovely, kind person who wouldn't hurt a fly.  I don't care how influential this guy has been in the music industry, he has no right to unleash his own personal hell on innocent people.

See him fugged on the hilarious Go Fug Yourself Web site.

Maria Muldaur

I saw Maria at the Bamboo Room in Lake Worth, FL, last night. What a treat! She was with her band Bluesiana, which was just guitar, drums and keyboards. The keyboardist played the bass line too. Just fantastic, every song in both sets. She ranged from roots blues to gospel to jazz to R&B and soul to Loosiana cajun swamp in her loose and sexy, bluesy style. She's such a mix of influences and uses all of them well.

Her Meet Me At Midnite, from 1994, is the most-played CD in my entire collection. Every song is killer, and the musicians are fantastic.

Strange Succulents

Begonias and Aroids are my thing, but I still have a soft spot for succulents and grow quite a few of them. Here are some Japanese hybrid gasterias that I would love to have. I can only imagine the patience required to hybridize these plants. How many years must it take to produce one? They do have a Japanese "look".

The sumo wrestler of the plant world.

Almost ghostly...

The Jolly Green Giant's tongue?

Two more beauties...

I found these pictures a couple of years ago on a Japanese Web site. Unfortunately, I no longer have it bookmarked, or I would give it the credit it deserves.

Ann Coulter is a Man

I know this is all over the Internet, but I had to archive it for posterity. It's too funny!

This one is funny too. Kinda captures her, I think.

Read Jennifer Wilbanks' shocking pornographic fantasy, the story she gave the police, on The Smoking Gun.

Desperate Housewife

With props to Jack Ohman, of the The Portland Oregonian

The Neverending Wonder of Nature

An unfurling Amorphophallus atroviridis. The single leaf emerging each spring from a dormant corm will have blue and pink tones. My all-time favorite amorphophallus.

I'm not a photographer, but I wish I could have captured this without the ugly pot. Maybe it can be Photoshopped. There's only one day in the entire year that this could be shot. Fortunately it wasn't raining. By the next day the leaf had already opened out a lot, so the shot wouldn't be nearly as dramatic and graceful. The tubers of this species tend to rot easily, too, so I may never get another chance to shoot it. Not that many people grow it, or even know it exists.

Rush Limbaugh Dating Ann Coulter??

Rush Limbaugh strolled into Ta-bóo restaurant on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach with none other than Ann Coulter. Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sprat in reverse. I'm so glad I wasn't there. I'd have tossed my very expensive Salade Niçoise!

Rush lives in Palm Beach. Tired of stalkers in New York, Ann recently bought a $1.8 million two-story there.

Ironically, Ta-bóo was full of drug reps who were attending an annual meeting at the Breakers. Ta-bóo owner Franklyn DeMarco helped the two make the rounds of several tables, including one occupied by Pfizer reps (Viagra).

Coulter was heard cooing to Limbaugh, "I love your little town." {akkkh}

My God. Her toes are registered as lethal weapons.

SuuuuuuuEEEEEEE!

Bill Clinton Invents Oral Sex

At least that's what Rush Limbaugh seemed to imply on an April 12 broadcast, blaming Clinton for making oral sex "the number one sport in high school today." James Wolcott, one of my favorite bloggers, paints the picture. He has a way with words!

Mighty Mama Rebuttal

Mighty Mama had some angry comments about "the glorification" of people whose lifestyle and life choices don't reflect a value for education. She somehow turns it into a racial issue by telling us that she expects to be called "a racist white bitch", but she is quick to point out that she considers her African American husband to be "her equal". We are so relieved. Perhaps she will later explain how he escaped the tentacles of the music industry.

While I somewhat agree with her premise, that there is more focus and importance placed on success in the sports and entertainment fields than there is on success in other fields, I was annoyed that she targeted Fantasia as an example. I have no idea what her education or family situation were like, and I doubt that Mighty Mama does either. Nevertheless, she suggests that Fantasia is a great example of a young, poorly-educated girl with ignorant parents. Young women don't set out to hook up with wife/girlfriend-beaters. The fact that Mighty Mama doesn't "feel bad" for women in that situation ticks me off. If they had grown up in a more nurturing environment, where different goals were stressed, they probably would have led more productive (no pun intended) lives.

I also didn't appreciate the fact that she failed to recognize that music, in fact the Arts in general, can be an important and worthwhile career choice. It's a little late to tell Fantasia to "close her legs". She's already a single mother--a single mother who chose not to stay with an abusive man and to try to make it on her own; a single mother who realized that she had singing talent and decided to pursue it, instead of living out her days on welfare. Out of 100,000 people who tried out for Season 3 of American Idol, she made it to number one. It would have been a tragedy to deprive the world of her talent.

Also, she says Fantasia is a stripper's name. If she had bothered to practice what she preaches about getting an education, she would have known that fantasia is a charming musical term.

angryblackbitch "ponders the topic with deep introspection and a furrowed brow", and adds her two cents, which is worth a helluva lot more than my two cents.