erring and snow

“There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness
in the proportion.”
Edgar Allan Poe

(a foot of snow blankets the yard / Julie Cook / 2017)

Whereas this unexpected early December Southern Snow has blanketed us with a
deep white blanket of mystical silence and stillness…it has not come without
a wealth of woe….

The school systems in and around the Atlanta metro area…north and westward…
school systems who usually err on the side of caution actually decided to listen
to our meteorologists who glibly reported that,
whereas it looked as if there would be some snow….,
we’d been so warm up to now that any snow would be fleeting.
A lite dusting that wouldn’t stick to roadways or driveways as it had just been
simply too warm for any real need for worry.

In other words, a short lived event.

This was to be taking place on Friday.

So on Friday, everyone opted to go about life as normal…
This is the deep South you know….we don’t really worry about winter weather
this time of year.

And so right on que the rains came, turning eventually over to snow.

And then it snowed and it snowed, and it kept on snowing…..

The schools scrambled and quickly decided that perhaps they should release the hounds students…
And so we had everyone in a myriad of counties all starting to unleash madness
upon the roadways all at the same staggering times.
Staggered releases seemed to be the best option…yet it was still snowing…hard.
Snow and ice were beating the release times.

Buses found it impossible to deliver their tender cargo as the snow and ice
were blanketing roadways…making traveling up and down hills impossible.

Our very pregnant daughter-n-law, who teaches here in our county but lives in Atlanta,
opted to come to our house verses trying to navigate the snowy icy interstates back
home to Atlanta as the News was painting a terrible traffic picture.

A typical 15 minute drive to our house from her school actually took her 2 hours…
as cars were now slip sliding away.
In fact my husband had to go meet her a mile from our house as cars had simply stopped
in their tracks on the roads as others had landed in the ditches and she was stuck in
the middle. It took him 30 minutes to get to her…a drive that should have taken two minutes.

Meanwhile, limbs were falling left and right in Atlanta.
It is a city known for her plethora of beautiful trees…yet snow and ice are not
kind to trees.

A snow laden limb fell on our son and daughter-n-laws house,
literally ripping out the power lines from the house….lines now laying dangerously
across the lawn.

GA Power has come to access the issue and now needs one of their certified
electricians to come out and reconnect the lines into the house before
they can re-run the lines from the pole to the house…
lest all things blow up.

Our son, dad’s cat and the grand dog are hunkering down in the dark, without heat
as the temperatures plunge down into the teens….
waiting for word of this elections.

This as I watched today those who really suffer through these sorts
of weather events…the animals…
as well as those who have no shelter to call their own…

As God watches over both animal and man who remain without….

(notice to the left of the two bulls, the wee head peering out from the crack
in the dilapidated barn)

(the poor cold bulls / Julie Cook / 2017)

But let all who take refuge in you be glad;
let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them,
that those who love your name may rejoice in you.
Psalm 5:11

failures in exaggeration

“It is always the novice who exaggerates.”
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

I saw this chart on another blog the other day and thought it absolutely hilarious…
because as a Southerner,
there’s really not much to exaggerate over where snow and ice are concerned…
Pandemonium does indeed ensue.

Just as we witnessed over the past week leading up to last night’s spitting of ice.

I actually laughed out loud when reading this chart…

I can laugh like that…at us here in the South,
because it is true,
we do get all worked up and in a dither when the “S” word is mentioned.
As our meteorologists fan the flames of sheer panic, destruction and doom.

Yet I’ve noticed that we, as a society,
have gotten quite comfortable with the whole notion of exaggeration.
I think some call that hyperbole…
while other’s simply call it lying.

Yet no matter what we call it, we’ve gotten good at it…
Stretching the truth here and there.
Tweaking reality just a smidge.
And flat out altering the facts…

I think we are currently calling such “fake news”

Others call that padding, inflating and misrepresentation…
as in “oh, you misunderstood, I didn’t really mean that….”

Politicians and pundits do it…think exit polls
Corporations do it…think quarterly numbers.
School Systems do it…think standardized test scores.

Books are cooked,
Records are falsified
And lying has been elevated to a fine art of finesse.

As we’ve all now learned that if you don’t like the truth…
that you can simply…
alter it,
change it,
or merely rewrite it…

And yet in situations that really really matter, such as things like National Security,
we’ve run in the opposite direction.

Take the young man in Anchorage Alaska who was recently discharged from his
service as a military reservist.
He walks into his local FBI office telling them that ISIS is forcing him to
watch propaganda videos as he mumbles on crazily about such.

My first red flag, if I was one of those agents,
would have been that his service record showed that he’d seen
service time in Iraq.
I would have then dug deeper into his service record.
I would have contacted his former commanding officer.
I would have wondered about PTSD.
I would have wondered about radicalization
after hearing him use the key acronym “ISIS”…

He was supposedly in some sort of therapy.
Perhaps I would have contacted his therapist.

Yet, he manages to buy a plane ticket to Florida.
Check his firearm and ammo as baggage.
Makes his way through security without any sort of question
as he’s obviously not on any sort of watch list,
despite rambling to the local FBI about ISIS,
all in order to board a flight south.

But I suppose its never odd for someone form Anchorage, in the dead of winter,
to want to fly to Florida.

Once his plane lands, he disembarks the plane, heads to baggage, grabs his bags,
heads to the men’s room in order to unpack his firearm and ammo, loads the gun
then proceeds to walk back out to the baggage-claim carrousels while he
randomly starts shooting.

Once he empties his clip,
he tosses his gun down and drops face down to the ground, spread eagle
as 5 folks are now dead and countless others are bleeding and wounded.

Yet we don’t want to target anyone,
profile anyone,
watch anyone,
or raise concern over anyone as not to
offend,
insult
or overreact…
lest we be sued or deemed insensitive.

As the ACLU,
the Southern Poverty Law Center,
liberal Washington, etc
would begin chanting racism, xenophobia, ignorance, rednecks….
you name it.

So now let’s try telling any of this to the victims and their family’s…
once again.

Rather now, everyone, the President included, will begin the same mantra that
we have heard over and over and over….
that this is just another incident where the gun is at fault.

This is the fault of having guns available….

Yet should it comes as any surprise that this young former serviceman had a gun, legally?

Maybe the FBI in Anchorage should have maybe considered a former service member,
despite no longer having a service weapon,
most likely owned a personal firearm as most current, as well as former, service members do.
As service members with a firearm is merely synonymous.

Nor should it be a surprise that anyone living in Alaska has a firearm…
most Alaskans do.
So maybe, just maybe the FBI should have wondered about all of this
when this young man showed up at their office babbling nonsense….

But then that would make too much sense.

And once again we’d appear to be profiling
or targeting
or assuming
or dare we say,
being cautious and sensible…

Keep falsehood and lies far from me
Proverbs 30:8

IT’S COMING !!!

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Hey ya’ll, it’s coming!
So says the deer to his fellow woodland creatures.
Has he spoken the the weather folks?
Does he know something that we humans do not?

Despite the squirrels obviously wounded nose, he too heeds the deer’s ominous warning.
Dig, dig, dig to find the stashed nuts before the ground is too covered or too frozen to do so. . .

“Make room” said the blue jay to the blackbird
“Move over” said the sparrow to the blue jay
“Don’t hog it all” says the blackbird to the robin
“I want some too” said the robin to the crow
“Get out of my way” said the deer to all the birds.
So goes the chatter of the amassed birds. All species and varieties vying for their share of the strewn corn, put out in anticipation of “The Coming”

And no I speak not of “the second coming” but of “THE COMING” —that which the news media (specifically the meteorologists) are all claiming to be a storm of “Epic”–“Historic” and “Catastrophic” proportion.

Oh how I really grow weary of the gloom and doom scenarios.
I am reminded, each time I switch on the television, of Henny Penny running about with her wings covering her head as if bombs were soon to be descending upon her head—“the sky is falling, the sky is falling”
The focus word spewing from the mouthes of the newscasters being “PREPARE”
Not so much for making way or repenting but rather in preparing, as in going out and boosting the economy by clearing off the shelves of the grocery stores.

One friend yesterday, who was out in the midst of the preparing chaos of stockpiling groceries, likened the inside of the grocery store to something out of the movie Apocalypse Now or a scene from Red Dawn. The “get out of my way, those are my eggs, Im taking no prisoners” mentality.

My poor husband. His is the local jewelry store—there’s just nothing like the chanting and drum beats of death and destruction to take the love right out of Valentine’s day. Folks are simply too distracted and too busy seeking those most prized disaster stables–bread, milk and eggs—rather than to think of the more genteel human emotions of love, amour, amore—this is survival we’re talking about, are you crazy man, nobody has time for that sentimental romance business?!

Our phones went off this morning in the wee hours, with that most ominous of sounds—- the one that, no doubt, will be sounded when the Russians decide to send the big one our way. . .“Alert, Your area is currently under a state of Emergency. Tune to local news media for details”
Talk about a wake up call!

Schools were canceled today.
The Governor is telling everyone to stay off the roads.
It’s 38 degrees and raining.
Hummmm

Well before I fall too deeply into the well of cynicism, it must be noted that I do have my required storm crisis supplies of the gallon of milk (1/2 gallon in our two person house), my loaf (loaves) of bread, my carton of eggs. .despite the fact that my grocery store had sold out of eggs yesterday at noon, extra charcoal for the grill, filled gas canisters for the generator, candles, flashlights, charged up technologies, etc—all in anticipation of. . . The Coming.

So if you hear from me tomorrow, you will know we survived.
If, however, there is no word, don’t hesitate to send in the search and rescue teams. . .
Oh, and by the way, if I am indeed lost to the storm—a happy Valentine’s day to you all, come Friday!!!