Tuesday 9 Jan 2024

Monday ended with our moving everything from 7H porch and from the sitting area outside our front door inside because of severe weather forecasts for last night and Tuesday morning. 

Tuesday ending quite a full day, which began with hot & black as our beloved Channel 13 weather team Ross Whitley & Kristen Kennedy monitored a tornado in Walton County. I no sooner came into the living room when my cellphone screamed a tornado warning at me, back to the bedroom tv where RW&KK were talking a waterspout ashore as a tornado, across Thomas Drive and Grand Lagoon directly across the Bay from here. Not visible because of the heavy driving rain in the darkness, but unending lightning and thunder with it. They drew a scary line that looked like it would cross us in a couple of minutes so we sheltered in an interior bathroom for five or six minutes as it passed west of downtown St Andrews and until they had it northwest of us and moving on toward Lynn Haven. It and other tornadoes did quite a bit of damage today. I think the pic above shows something interesting about building construction and how to anchor into the earth beneath it, a house that appears to be raised on stilts. Instead of tearing it to splinters, the tornado apparently ripped this house loose from its stilt foundations and tipped it over?

Is someone spoofing us, or did this really happen twice at the same location, first with Hurricane Michael October 2018 and again this week, January 2024 with the waterspout tornado that came ashore?

Here and there around town there are still tall rotting trees, dead from Hurricane Michael in October 2018, that look poised as deadly dangers waiting for just such violent winds as we had today, to crush everything beneath them as they fall. It takes a property owner not at all mindful of safety to leave such trees standing. My term would be "damn fool" but as a clergy person I'd never write that in my blogpost.

Just before seven o'clock AM I phoned the dermatology center to see if my 8:15 AM surgery was still on - - the surgeon was already there and we left immediately, sort of between storms, and drove there so as to be safely off the roads and inside before the next solid red weather line arrived. Their lobby, which usually is full, was empty, I was taken in early, the surgery team did their work, biopsy, clear, closed up my chin,

and we were home safely well before eleven o'clock if I recall correctly, the weather still nasty but slowly clearing. 

Down for a long late morning early afternoon nap, then to Sam's pharmacy to pick up the pain med and anti-infection prescription about two o'clock. Back home, soup for afternoon dinner so no chance of biting the surgery area around my lip, then down for another long nap. 

Soup again for supper. 

Wednesday we'll go back out to buy the Vaseline the surgeon's instruction sheet says I must keep smearing on the stitched up area to help minimize scarring. That will begin soon as I take the bandage off after 48 hours, which will be Thursday morning. 

One of the best parts, his prescription for rest, defining "rest" as "No working out, No walking for exercise, No chores" - - so back to my favorite retirement activity, which is taking naps.

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Folks are checking, we are fine. For overnight, I plan a long winter's nap well into Wednesday morning. 

My friends, life is short, and we haven't much Time, so make the most of it, enjoy loving and being loved!

RSF&PTL

T88&c