Goodnight Irene!!!!!

The end of last week was the end of a very eventful week for the east coast. First we had an earthquake (8/23) and then a hurricane (Irene - 8/26-27). I do believe that Mother Nature was trying to give us a message. I have yet to figure out what it is, but when I do I know that it will be very enlightening.

I was at the gym for the earthquake - it was all noise for me as the building protested. No rippling of the ground etc. Truth be told I really did not know that an earthquake had happened until the next patron came in and asked if I had felt "it". "It" being the earthquake - 5.9 on the scale and centered in Virginia. There was minor damage in Baltimore and DC, but nothing that claimed lives.

Irene on the other hand came ashore in North Carolina and proceeded up the east coast - hitting land a couple more times and slinking away as a tropical storm going towards Canada. Each part of the country was the recipient of it's own type of damage from wind, storm surges, high winds and mega rainfalls. It had been decades literally since some parts of the northeast actually experienced this type of storm. The politicos went to work and they evacuated thousands of people in harms way and closed stuff down - some are claiming they went overboard, while others were glad for the precautions. I am a firm believer in the fact that there would probably be many more storm related deaths if these precautions had not been taken.

My little corner of the world was barely phased by either event. My trees stood firm and only gave up a small portion of their branches and we avoided the lose of power as well. The only thing that went wrong was the fact that we lost cable for a couple of days. A minor inconvenience considering that we could have lost the contents of our freezer, which was full to capacity with newly purchased supplies.

We were told to prepare for the worst and expect the best. This is exactly what happened for me and mine but for others it has been catastrophic - loss of a few lives, loss of home, loss of a way of life and in at least one case the loss of a whole a town. It is as if it never existed. It is going to be quite some time before some semblance of order is restored and lives can be put back together again. My heart felt wishes and prayers go out to each and every one them for a speedy and full recovery.

Another Fitting Monument

It has been over six years since my husband - Paul John - passed away. Does not seem like it has been that long, but it has.

My husband was cremated and expressed the desire that his ashes be scattered at his "crabbing spot" on the Eastern Shore. This will be done someday, but in the meantime he is resting on a shelf above the television set in the living room.

For the longest time he was in a plain black box, but I decided that I needed to find something more appropriate. After searching I came up with the sea chest (thought that it was a nice homage of the fact that he was in the Navy and his love of the sea) and it has been his home ever since. The "sailor" bear is a Boyd's bear and represents his younger self and the old time seafaring man (hand made by me years ago) is representative of him in his later years.

I tell people that he is with me always - he is sitting on a shelf at home being a part of the family on a daily basis.

A Fitting Monument

This is the mountain top - Mills Peak in the Sierra Mountains of Northern California - that is the final resting place for my parents, Arlys Louise and Harry Aaron Hemping. They are together overlooking the land that they fell in love with many years ago (the mid-50s) and made their home from then on. My mother was a "housewife" and my father worked for the U. S. Forest Service. They raised two of us. We are ten years apart in age so it was like they had two families.

I left home at 18 (two years of college and then to San Francisco to work for the U. S. Government) and from then on I was a visitor in their home. I kept in close contact over the years, mainly by letters (yep - snail mail) and telephone calls. I would call home and even though it was mom that I talked to, my dad was on the other line listening in and ever once in a while he would "add his two cents worth" on whatever subject we happened to be talking about.

I just went back to Graeagle for a visit and the homes that seemed so big when I was growing up now seem so small. It is amazing how time makes things seem to shrink. The house that we were living in when I left home is now a shop called Eco Centric. Seems strange to see display shelves and cases in place of the furniture that I remember. Time marches on with very little regard to those of us that leave.