Archive for the 'weather' Category

Ike update - Parents have Power!

Published by kindli on September 16, 2008 in adventures, family, update and weather. 0 Comments

I spoke with my parents about 20 minutes ago. About 30 seconds after mom picked up the phone the lights came back on! My parents are doing fine, the house sustained very minimal damage, and there was no flooding.

The cat, who usually supplements his diet liberally with small mammals and lizards, is annoyed they’ve run off, and that he’s mostly consuming kibble. 

For more on the storm and how the Houston/Glaveston area is coping, visit the Houston Chronicle’s website www.chron.com, for updates on how my parents are doing, you can now call or e-mail them. 

Update on the Parents in Houston - post Ike

Published by kindli on September 14, 2008 in adventures, family, update and weather. 0 Comments

For those of you who’ve asked how my parents are doing after Hurricane Ike decimated the Houston/Galveston area, the answer is they’re doing OK.

They don’t have power, but their land-line phones are working again. There was minimal damage to the house, some siding blew off, no flooding, or extreme damage. A few neighbors lost chimneys, and some trees snapped on the Golf Course. The Cat is also fine.

Friends of ours in the area DO have power, so my parents spent the afternoon with them. Hopefully they’ll get power back soon.

For updates on how things are going, the Houston Chronicle’s website, www.chron.com ,is doing a decent job covering the issues.

Abilene Blows

Published by kindli on April 18, 2008 in adventures, family, travel and weather. 2 Comments

The wind in Abilene perpetually blows, literally. All along the highways there are signs or “crosswinds” and “strong wind gusts.” The wind enjoys playing nasty games with large trucks and our small rental car was also buffeted frequently by gusts. After experiencing the wind first hand it is easy to see why they chose to build a wind farm in the area.

img_2330.JPG

The locals believe the wind farm will bring jobs and money to the area. The wind farm is still in it’s infancy so the long-term effects are yet to be seen. Clearly the local speculators are excited: several hotels have been built up near the highway and the road leading to the wind farm. We’ve driven through the rest of town, and we think they’re a little optimistic.

Continue reading ‘Abilene Blows’

cake, and other ways to spend a Sunday afternoon

Published by kindli on April 6, 2008 in cooking, friends, fun, garden, photos, townhouse and weather. 4 Comments

This afternoon Dana drove up for Lunch and Cake. Lunch was hamburgers, caesar salad and oven fries. We ate outside enjoying the sunny (slightly brisk) weather. 

img_2171.JPG

 After lunch we had Cake. Four layers of white spongy perfection with lemon custard layered in between, topped with an amazingly fluffy tangy white icing. It was about 6 to 8 inches tall, when it was on the cake stand it just barely fit into the fridge. 

Continue reading ‘cake, and other ways to spend a Sunday afternoon’

you can’t have my hammock!

Published by kindli on March 17, 2008 in adventures, fun, townhouse and weather. 0 Comments

In the last few weeks, Gavin and I have taken steps to make our backyard a more inviting and useable space. We already have a grill and a rather lopsided outdoor umbrella, and I’ve been potting and gardening around the small flower beds. We’ve also acquired a nice outdoor dining set, and have enjoyed several lunches outside.

During the backyard usefulness/beautification project I managed to convince Gavin that we needed a hammock on the lower deck. He balked at the idea until I showed him some websites, and explained I had done the measuring and explained what would fit nicely.

The hammock arrived early this afternoon and I had a fairly easy time assembling it. I had to wait for Gavin to come home before I could properly test it, everything needed to be tightened, and that was easier with two people.

img_2040.JPG

Gavin doesn’t think it will get much use, but I’m going to do my best to prove him wrong. The weekends have been so nice it would be a shame to waste them sitting in front of a computer. Go lay in the hammock and read The Economist instead!

Continue reading ‘you can’t have my hammock!’

readings break freezing

Published by kindli on January 24, 2008 in California and weather. 1 Comment

Most days at 11 I watch Matlock. It is a nice mid-morning break, and sometimes I’ll fold laundry or cook/bake while I watch. This morning I came down a little earlier than usual and caught the last of the 10:00 news.

Or rather, what I thought was the 10 am news. They had a feature called “Lunch Break” and wished viewers “a good afternoon.”

When they described the weekend’s weather as having “several periods of snow…. clouds break, breezy and milder in the afternoon… readings break freezing for first time in 10 days” and the weather map they showed was clearly NOT of the CA greater Bay Area I was a little confused.

Apparently our basic cable includes WGN from Chicago. This explains the “lunch break” feature, they’re two hours ahead of us. Thank goodness. I was not looking forward to the idea of snow this weekend.

yay for city water

Published by kindli on January 5, 2008 in California, adventures, townhouse and weather. 0 Comments

On the Fourth Day of the New Year the Weather Gods brought to me 24 hours with our electricity (it is back now).

Gavin and I were among the estimated one million people without power yesterday after the CA coast was blasted with storms.

We were among the lucky, we have a gas stove and gas water heater so we were able to do some basic cooking and have hot showers. We managed to open the garage door so I drove Gavin to work, past the USPS truck that was half in the ditch, slowly filling with water.

Fortunately Gavin’s office was open, and they had power, so I sat quietly in the corner all day surfing the internet. When we got back home we had candles and I picked up some synthetic logs at Safeway, so we had pasta in the living room (the easiest room to light).

After dinner we went to REI (out), Target (out) and finally Sports Authority (had 10 or so left, got 2) in search of lanterns. We got two battery operated ones, and went to Costco for packs of D batteries, and some really cool hand-crank LED flashlights with radios and cellphone charger capabilities. Although the lanterns gave off a weird cold blue-green light, they lit the living room remarkably well, and they provided enough light to read by.

Thankfully, the power came back sometime in the early hours of the morning, now to reset all the alarm clocks!

not too sweet and not too complicated

Published by kindli on November 10, 2007 in California, cooking, townhouse and weather. 0 Comments

It’s been raining, cold, and drizzly all day. Gavin and I drove to Santa Rosa to go to Costco (toilet paper), Bed Bath & Beyond (coasters), and the Mall (watch battery). We came home, hung some more art, and enjoyed the rest of our Saturday evening.

It is on the cooler side in the townhouse and I was in the mood for some comfort food, but not comforting enough that I couldn’t stop grazing, just a little something sweet, but not too sweet, and not too complicated.

I found a recipe for old fashioned short bread in the BakeBakeBake LJ community and decided to give it a try. It met all my qualifications: simple to make, sweet, but not sweet enough to keep me grazing all night. As an added bonus the dough seems to keep fairly well in the fridge.

Gavin was fairly pleased as well, the recipe did not call for any eggs so he happily “sampled” as much dough as he wanted.

img_1194.JPG

Once they had cooled, the result was a slightly sweet cookie with a crisp edge and chewy center (before they cooled they fell apart when I picked them up). I only made one log of dough and that yielded 18 cookies, the other two logs are in the fridge for later.

in praise of garages

Published by kindli on October 16, 2007 in California, townhouse and weather. 0 Comments

A few weeks back I insisted on clearing out our garage enough to park our car in it. Gavin thought I was crazy. Our garage is narrow (smaller than my parent’s) and we’ve lined both sides with shelves, small tables, trash cans and Gavin’s recumbent bicycle. Although our car is relatively small it still makes for a tight squeeze.

A few weeks back the weather was beautiful, sun shiny, brisk and clear. Today (yesterday and tomorrow) the weather has been (was and is predicted to be) on the drizzly/damp/rainy/cold-ish side.

After I dropped Gavin off at work this morning I went past the store. When I arrived home, I was able to pull into the garage and unload the groceries with out getting wet. Having a garage, and a car to put it in, is one of those little things and you never really appreciate until you have lived with out one.

For over a year in Somerville we lived with out a car (or garage), although I enjoyed the exercise walking two blocks to the store brought, and the upper body strength acquired hauling groceries up two flights of stairs to the third floor, there is something magical about being able to put groceries in the trunk of a car and unloading them again in the security of a garage. While my walk to Market Basket wasn’t bad on nice days, in the winter and in the rain the two blocks seemed like two miles.

Happily I remained dry, as did our groceries. It really isn’t raining, it’s more drizzling. It’s chilly, drizzly and over cast. It isn’t raining hard enough to really use the windshield wipers, but it’s raining hard enough where you need to anyway. And to think, back in August I wondered if precipitation ever fell from the skys over Sebastopol.

Updates & Opinions on the Weather

Published by kindli on September 8, 2007 in weather. 0 Comments

Living up to our blog’s subtitle, I shall now inform you of my Opinions on the Weather.

Weather in Sebastopol is weird. When we first moved here, the mornings were chilly and dense fog blanketed the ground. The foggy mornings have lessened and the mornings have warmed a little.

Thursday afternoon the temperature dropped, wind picked up and the sky became overcast. Everywhere else I have lived those are classic signs of an impending downpour, out here, it was just brisker, windier and more overcast. No rain.

No rain later in the evening, or that night, or Friday, although it continued to stay on the cooler side.

I’m not complaining, I don’t mind it being comfortably cool, it’s just a little strange. I mentioned it to Gavin on Thursday afternoon, and got an explanation about mountains and which side we were on.

In Houston things like that were caused by high and low pressure systems, cold fronts and systems influenced by the Gulf (I’d watch and compare the evening news’ weather).

I never really followed Elsah weather, unless there was a tornado warning, and all I cared about in Boston was how rain and snow would effect my commute (weather forecasts lie, pack an umbrella).

I guess I need to learn my California geography a little better, and maybe watch the local weather forcasts. And now it’s clear, sun-shiney and still on the slightly-cooler side. Sebastopol has the weirdest weather.