Maybe a picture before posting this morning from our November digs, a more suitable 3BR 3bath condo farther west on PCB, arranged for the six of us by Britany, whose company is Wyndham. Because of Britany we are able to stay in the area while 7H is made lovable again. When I was seventeen it was a very good year, but at 17th floor, this space about tops me out: not a spider person, I'm not a heights person either, 7H is about my comfort limit, but 7H is not livable until after some level of storm damage removal, floors, walls, ceilings in the Beck side.  Our years, we lived in our homes during construction work more than once, and each time promised ourselves Never Again. But this time it looks like work may go on maybe into next year, so we'll see. At any event, we count ourselves fortunate in so many ways, including Malinda's improving health and state of mind; insurance coverage for the total loss of Malinda's house and minor damage to 7H; extraordinarily ...

Life and the world aren't About Me any more, nor any less, than life and the world are about anyone else on the Earth. But, sleeping last night, still night actually, right at five o'clock and outside, the Gulf of Mexico is black as pitch, sleeping & waking and sleeping & waking & sleeping, I realized that there is a hurricane psychosis! It took me back nearly eight years to January 2011, my couple of nights in the ICU following open heart surgery at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. The medics' work that had been physical and so successful turned out also to have a psychic phase that I experienced, and when I later described it to medical people here back home, was told that it's quite common and known as ICU psychosis: nights there I had recurring dreams, two of them, dreams that would not let go but that, miserable to me, kept returning, recurring even though I woke fully again and again and again, the exact same dream would return. One night it was a parade band...

Back to Somewhere after yesterday's Sunday, we are on schedule to pack and move tomorrow, from Somewhere to a condo a few miles west, further up and further in, as Aslan would have it, from the place I love; which begins as one crosses The Bridge  heading east on US98. Larger, that next beachfront hurrication condo is reserved to be our home through November. Sunsets there will surely be as nice. Commenting a day or few ago, a friend does not understand the depth of my ongoing feelings about what has been done to Bay County, Panama City and surrounding territory, to the land and people here, to us personally, and to me. Not sure, but I think I may have used the word ineffable in my expressions, because my feelings are inexpressible to me, I do not understand my own self, how personally I am taking what comes to me as betrayal, treachery, sheer, outright evil in the nature of Creation, even as I theologically understand the Bible story of Job, and realize the absurdity of...

Shema, Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai echod, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. And the Earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And Wind, the Spirit of God, moved over churning chaos. And God SAID “Let there be light.” And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good. And all that God said, it was SO. And God looked at all that he had Created, and it was very good indeed.  Israel worships Adonai the Lord as the one true God and Creator of all that is, King of the Universe. And for that matter, so do we Christians, excepting perhaps only that we bless that same One True Creating God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  And the Nicene, our creed of Christian orthodoxy, with the incompetency of any human committee effort to describe and define God, dares to box who God is by what God has done, nice try. Another of our creeds, called the Creed of ...

Here we are, Sunday morning at 7H. 7H is not conveniently livable because though we have the use of the porch, our bedroom and adjoining bathroom, no kitchen's available as it's filled with furniture from rooms being worked on and dehumidified. Hot water: this morning’s shower and shampoo will be cold water.  What do I remember about cold showers? First, that Pop, my grandfather, took a cold shower every morning; he only lit off the water heater once a week, for mom’s hot bath. Second, that my summers at Camp Weed, our diocesan camp when I was a boy, we had cold showers every day; except that Saturday night the huge boilers were lit off to grace one and all with a hot shower. I was ten to seventeen those summers, no problem.  Navy warship? No, it was a thirty second shower at times, especially off Yankee Station when the Marine contingent were aboard: Wet stop, Soap, Rinse stop; but always hot water.  Yesterday, Ray had a phone call from the adjuster reporting th...

Pardon if this seems daily diary, but again, it's my WebLog, I'll do whatever, eh! Friday, yesterday, we drove from PCB to StAndrews to check 7H, check for mail (been no mail to HV in a week now). What comes to mind - - that seventy-five and that years ago I used to ride with Mom & Pop up to Grand Ridge to visit two of Mom's sisters, Aunt Alice and Aunt Nell, who were married to King brothers. Aunt Nell had a reed organ on her closed in front porch, and I made great use of the time there playing my piano lessons on her organ while pumping with my feet to keep it going and from whining down. Aunt Alice's family had a farm, or raised livestock, as a child I never really knew but did learn to walk carefully in the barnyard, and to know that when we had Sunday dinner there, the table was bending with weight of food, a King's spread. The fried chicken was memorable, but I did learn not to help myself to the sliced pork and gravy the time my first bite was ...

Oh my, the situation is numbing as it is, three linemen, people here to help us, killed in a hit and run, intensifies it infinitely, adds moral disintegration to the mix - - of what we are becoming, or perhaps truthfully always have been as Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve. It's not to shake our heads, mutter what a shame and go on, it is to stop at last and contemplate what's salvagable or even worth saving. There is smiley face optimism, and then there is Truth. This isn't at all what I'd thought to blog this morning. Bay District Schools' line on television this morning, "Register your student at the school closest to where you now live" signifies the total changedness of our new world.  Personal update from yesterday's dash and run, speedy over and back appointment with Malinda's surgeon and nurse practitioner. Somewhat surprised but not discouraged at confusion and short term memory and times of anger and hostility, said that interfer...

On the road to Mandalay Where the flyin' fishes play And the dawn comes up like thunder Out of China 'cross the bay The image is sunset, of course, not dawn, Thursday's dawning is below, from the same spot, clouds over the moon, and it's the Gulf of Mexico not Asia, but one can dream: if dreams are not allowed, what's the point? Of being human, and of life itself. Dawn redivivus and a yellow flag  Quarter past five, in less than three hours we leave PCB for Pensacola, quick over and back for Malinda's two-week followup appointment. What might be my dream today? That all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. In my dream I visit my brother in Pensacola, and have a dozen half-shell, then return home to Panama City as it now exists only in my mind and never will be again in my lifetime, a lovely town of tall pines, ancient oaks and canopied streets and neighborhoods.  Yesterday across the bridge into StAndrews...

Early browsing this morning, not checking the News online because we all have our own news, and your news and their news is not my news this disconcerting 2018, or as from late May and 10 October.  2018, 2018, go away  come again some other eon, and came across an article with discussion and pictures of various ships of the US Navy, making me long for a Time machine to disappear into my past, unite with history, where would I go and Be? Norfolk, Virginia 1958. Or maybe 1959 as I liked being  jaygee better than ensign. I wouldn't go and stay forever, of course, only perhaps until all this is over, the Little Apocalypse. But then, who knows what may come next - - and, Mark 13:18, Pray that it may not happen in winter. Today we'll go across the bridge into town to check on Life Itself, 7H and HNEC. Someone wrote on FB that Los Antojitos is open,  which means that Easter Sunday is dawning after all,  we may check there for lunch, my soul could use...

For every Loss, a Gain: after days, week with no WiFi except occasional, intermittent and then failing hotspots with my phone or Linda's, yesterday the WiFi came on here at the hotel and is the strongest I've ever experienced, including at the Old Place and at 7H.  Born in Panama City and driving here and there, seeing what nature has dealt us, one has to keep thinking of and looking for these Gains, big and little blessings, small favors, in order to keep from dissolving in grief and tears. One can disappear into sadness and never come back, a danger of what we are going through. Panama City, the Cove where I grew up, StAndrews where I also grew up, are places in my mind's eye, carried all my Navy years away, and those pictures are as gone as the photo albums we didn't get out of Malinda's house. Seeing the mold, the insurance adjusters donned hazmat gear, gave Ray & Britany face masks, and said none of us can safely enter without. Yesterday went well enoug...

Not sure what I've posted or updated and I'm not going back to reread my own writing, so may be repeating here! Very good indeed: Tass drove over from Tallahassee, bringing treats including a pie from Charlotte, and worked like a beaver in 7H, getting us back in business, we ancients are so very grateful. Tass is safe back home. Sunday evening Chef Ray made us all a gourmet dinner, if I lived with these folks long I'd have to start running ten miles a day. Speaking of: the Heart Health meter on my cell phone shows I've been getting great exercise throughout this stressful Time, better than sitting looking out my Bay window in 7H. Today the insurance adjuster is meeting me at 7H to go over our damage which, inconvenient for us, is nothing, comparatively absolutely nothing as I look around at what other folks are enduring, OMG. Also today an insurance adjuster is to inspect Malinda's house, which Ray is handling for them.  And now this morning, Ray told me that he...

Job 38 NRSV The Lord Answers Job 1 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:  2 “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 3 Gird up your loins like a man,     I will question you, and you shall declare to me. 4 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?     Tell me, if you have understanding. 5 Who determined its measurements—surely you know!     Or who stretched the line upon it? 6 On what were its bases sunk,     or who laid its cornerstone 7 when the morning stars sang together     and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? 8 “Or who shut in the sea with doors     when it burst out from the womb?— 9 when I made the clouds its garment,     and thick darkness its swaddling band, 10 and prescribed bounds for it,  ...