NBC-10-Philadelphia-kimwolterman

Anything Goes

We were at the Fox Theatre tonight when the tornado warning sirens were going off in St. Louis County. I had never really considered the best place to be in the Fox should a tornado hit. We were not advised to take shelter since the storm was off to the west, and the show did indeed go on! And what a show it was. I have never seen Anything Goes before, but what a high energy production. The music, dancing, singing and set design were great. We thoroughly enjoyed the show, and it was nice to forget about the storm for awhile.

Reality set in as we made a mad dash for the car, parked several blocks away. Interstate 44 was thankfully not very crowded, because the pouring rain made it very difficult to see the lines. It was probably the worst weather conditions I have driven in for a long time. Creeping along at 40 miles per hour made the drive home a lot longer than usual, but we made it safe and sound. So far other than some water in the basement, I don't think we had any damage here at the house. Tomorrow will tell. To all of those in St. Louis and Oklahoma who did not fare so well, my thoughts and prayers go out to you.

Bird house

In July of 2010 we installed a pretty birdhouse in the back yard. We had an extra post left from the back porch when it was removed in preparation for the addition back in 2007. We held on to it since it was in such good shape, and decided it would make the perfect stand for a birdhouse. We ordered this particular house because we had admired the ones in Gramercy Park in New York City, and it was based on that design. The birds adopted it right away and it has been a full house ever since. Until now. The other day Jim was walking out to his car and noticed that the house was missing - as in totally gone! The weird thing is that the nests are still sitting on top of the post. So we think that in the storm the other night a branch must have landed on the house and knocked it off.

I didn't notice it was missing until he told me about it today. So I went out to investigate and found the pieces to the house all busted up in the shrubs below. It is really disappointing as it was expensive, and yet as I picked up the pieces I could tell they were made from thin wood. It seems even bird house builders use cheaper materials to save costs.

Bird nest

Bird house blown to smithereens

I can just hear the little birds saying, "Really? This had to happen just as it is getting cold here?" Looks like Jim and I will be out shopping for a new home. One that will be going to the birds.

St. Louis storm damage

Last night was the monthly board meeting of the St. Louis Publishers Association, which is held at the St. Louis Bread Company in the Galleria. Just as I was getting ready to head out the door, the winds whipped up, the rain began to pour sideways, and the hail came down. No way was I going to take my new baby, much less myself, out in that storm. As I waited for the storm to moderate, lightning struck, the lights dimmed, and a crackling noise indicated the end of telephone service. Jim was still at work, so the lack of a land line was not a big deal.

When I returned home from the meeting I went outside with an umbrella to take the recycling bin out to the front curb for the Wednesday morning pickup. I noticed a lot of debris in the yard, but that was nothing compared to what I saw when I reached the parkway. I use the word "saw" loosely as it was pitch black outside by then. I hurried back to the house to get a flashlight, and the next door neighbors stepped out to let me know that our downed tree branches had taken out their phone, Internet and cable. Sure enough there were a lot of limbs down, some of which were hanging out in the street. I moved them back onto our parkway and sidewalk the best that I could while juggling an umbrella and a flashlight.

When I got back into the house I fully expected that we would not have any of our AT&T services either. But our line was not affected at all. This morning I could more fully assess the damage. The tree is a 100+ year old Horse Chestnut (aka Buckeye) that won an award from the city of Webster Groves a few years ago because it is such a beautiful tree. Fortunately it does have a lot of branches, so you really can't tell where the limbs fell off. At least I couldn't tell today - once all the leaves are off that may be different.

The beauty of Webster Groves, besides the houses, is the abundance of stately, mature trees in the community. But many of them are nearing the end of their life spans. I can only hope that homeowners are planting replacement trees before it is too late.

storm damage to the Buckeye

Friday morning we packed up the car and Kathy and I drove to Cincinnati for Uncle Mick's funeral. Kathy did well on the drive despite her aching broken shoulder. We arrived at our hotel by 3:30 and unloaded the suitcases in our room. Quite a few people were at the funeral home by the time we arrived. I spoke to many cousins I knew (and several I don't know), and enjoyed looking at the slide show and photo boards Mick's kids had put together. His casket was closed because he hit his face when he fell. I was surprised that the funeral home wasn't able to work around that by putting the injured side away from the opening of the casket, and working their make-up magic. I found it really hard to say good-bye when I couldn't see his sweet face.

There was no autopsy done, which also surprised me. I thought that they always did one when the cause of death was unknown. Did he simply fall and hit his head just so on the window sill? Did he have a heart attack, which caused the fall? Did he have a stroke first? I would want to know. What they do know is that he was out on his screened in porch in his winter coat (it was cold last Saturday night) listening to an Italian opera and smoking a cigar. His son and daughter-in-law found him at 3:00 Sunday afternoon. They could hear the opera playing as they walked down the hall of the condominium complex. I'm surprised no neighbors complained if the music played all night.

We stayed at the wake until the funeral home kicked us out around 6:15. Ten of us then went to the Price Hill Chili Parlor for supper. I spied chocolate covered baklava on the menu, so I had a bowl of soup so I could indulge in dessert. Awesome! Kathy and I got back to our hotel room around 9:15. It was beginning to mist as we drove back to the hotel, and that was just the beginning. The forecast was for an inch of ice to develop. Great...It brought back really bad memories of my dad's funeral in Cincinnati in 2004. We had rain, ice, sleet and inches of snow all within a 24 hour period. Hardly anyone could get to the funeral, and fewer still headed to the cemetery for the military burial service.

The funeral director had advised that we arrive early Saturday morning for the funeral because a) the church is in a really bad neighborhood and b) parking is a problem. Kathy and I took him at his word. I went out to scrape the ice off my car at 8:10. Twenty minutes later I was finally able to see out of the windows. I picked Kathy up under the overhang of the hotel and we crept across one of the bridges over the Ohio River to downtown Cincinnati. We arrived at the church at 9:00. The funeral was to begin at 10:00. We were the first ones there. We even beat the immediate family. This is why we were so close to the beginning of the funeral procession, which becomes important later in the story.

The Old St. Mary's Church is absolutely amazing inside. It was built in 1841 and is reminiscent of the churches in Europe. Apparently Uncle Mick had done some of the painting on the ceiling (just like Michelangelo, he would joke) during the restoration of the church, as well as behind the altar. He also helped author a book on the history of the church. (You can begin to see why he and I had so much in common.)

The priest who conducted the funeral was of Spanish descent, and to be honest I only understood about half of what he was saying. At one point I thought he said something about "release the cocktails". I puzzled on that for a moment until I realized he said "release the captives." Then I thought I heard him say a "hologram to heaven" - never did figure that one out. Irreverently the Saturday Night Live skit with Father Guido Sarducci (wrong country, I know) popped into my head during the service. Find the pope in the pizza contest... I was disappointed that the there wasn't a little more personalization to the Mass considering all that Uncle Mick had done for the church. The man who did the second reading - a cousin to Uncle Mick's deceased wife - tried to make that happen. When he approached the microphone he said, "I'd like to make an observation..." and then he stopped. Apparently the second priest, who was seated behind where he was speaking said, "No! No observations!" It was an awkward moment. One thing that was interesting about the Mass is that for communion we all came up and knelt at the communion rail, and you took the host on your tongue not in your hands. (Okay, that kind of sounds like an M & M commercial.)

Following Mass we went in procession to Spring Grove Cemetery. This is the same cemetery that my cousin Gina and I had photographed when I was in Cincinnati in August. It is similar to the Fort Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis in that it is beautiful, hilly and filled with the who's who of city founding fathers. The first thing we saw when we drove through the gates was a sign that said something about hazardous driving conditions, and enter at your own risk. Not good. We were the fourth car in the procession following the hearse. Things were going okay until we came to a steep hill and the vehicles ahead of me came to a stop. My first thought was no! Don't stop going up the hill; I'll never get started again. My second was that this is where they expected us to park for the graveside funeral, and that we would have to walk up an icy hill. Not happening! Then I noticed that the hearse was sliding sideways. The driver got out of the vehicle and waved the car behind him around. He got back in the hearse and tried again. This time he slid off the side of the road. You can see in the picture where the other cars are in relation to where the hearse ended up. As the funeral director and his assistant were contemplating what to do, I noticed that the car behind me was right on my back bumper. Really? There was no way for me to even try to turn around with him so close.
After consulting on their phones, they decided we all would have to back down the hill and they would conduct the service at the chapel. I don't do backup well. Even on a straight, dry area. Now they want me to back down a steep, curving, icy hill? I gave the bumper parker plenty of time to get down the hill before I began my descent to a flat area where I could turn around on the side street. By now there were only two vehicles ahead of me and one behind me from our procession. The blind leading the blind through this huge cemetery. Which chapel? There are at least six in the cemetery. You've heard of the wedding crashers? We were the funeral crashers, as we weren't the only ones trying to bury a loved one on an icy, miserable January day.

We finally located cars with our particular funeral flags on their roofs and hurried in to hear the priest speak his last words over the casket. (I later learned that they were going to start without us until one of my cousins informed the funeral director that Mick's two sisters and her out of town cousins were not present yet.) Here was the personalized eulogy I had been hoping to hear. This priest obviously knew my uncle well, and shed tears with the rest of us. The marines came in as Taps was played, and the military burial service was conducted. Not a dry eye in the house.

Following this final service we all headed over to the club house of Mick's condominium complex for a reception. It was very nice, and you couldn't help but think how much Mick would have enjoyed seeing everyone. It broke up around 5 and Kathy & I along with Aunt Margie and her son Pat, daughter Mary Ann, and Mary Ann's daughter Gina decided to go out to supper. We told stories and had some laughs, and I think it helped take Margie's mind off of her brother's death for a bit. I had told Mary Ann that we would give Margie a ride home because it was out of her way to take her mom home and she had to pack for a business trip. Anyway Kathy and I had not had any time alone with Margie and normally we get to spend a lot of time with her when we are in town. Aunt Margie will turn 90 this summer, but she still lives at home and drives herself everywhere. Except when the iceman cometh.

After we ate I went to move my car as close to the restaurant as I could. Gina got her grandma settled in the front seat and Kathy got into the back. Because of her broken shoulder she cannot fasten the seat belt by herself. Mary Ann tried to help her and she couldn't get it to work. Then Gina opened the other back door and tried to approach it from that direction. She slipped on some ice and barely was able to catch herself. By now we were all laughing so hard we couldn't see straight. I asked the question, "How many Crushams does it take to fasten a seat belt?" They finally got her buckled in and we headed over to Margie's.

When I pulled into her driveway, it was a sheet of ice. She opened her garage door and I pulled as close as I could to the back of her car. I still had to slowly walk around my car holding on for dear life to get to her car door. After getting her safely into the garage I then had to get Kathy from my back seat into the front for a slip-slidey trip back across the river to our hotel. I was never so happy to get to a hotel room as I was last night. The drive home today was accomplished not with ice but with fog instead. Ei, yi, yi! But we made it, so that is all that matters at this point.

Jim, Katie, Katie's friend Maggie and I are in Washington, D.C. to visit Andy and Megan. We arrived Wednesday night. The girls are staying with the kids and Jim and I are at a local Comfort Inn since Andy and Megan don't have a guest bed in their townhouse. There was a heck of a storm at 6 Thursday morning, with thunder, lightening and heavy rain. We heard 3 separate car alarms going off from the thunder-boomers.

Thursday the four of us went down to the city (Andy and Megan live in Gaithersburg, MD) for the day while Andy and Megan went to work. Jim and I went to the Mall to photograph the WWII Memorial for my dad's book while the girls did their thing, and then we met up after lunch at the Holocaust Museum. Wow - what can you so about that museum? Doesn't seem right to say I "enjoyed" the museum, but I can say unequivocally that it is very sobering and thought-provoking. After that we went to the Smithsonian Visitor's Center as I had always admired the brick castle-like appearance of the building but had never been in it. It is beautiful inside, and we also found some great ice cream. Good pick-me-up on a really hot afternoon. We also hit the Air and Space Museum before heading back towards the train. Unfortunately it began to pour, so we ducked under a building overhang for a bit. It was a soggy 45 minute train ride back to the Shady Grove Station where we had parked Andy's car.

Friday Andy took half a day off, so we drove first to Georgetown to try to score some Georgetown Cupcakes (made famous from the cable show DC Cupcakes), and found a several block long line waiting to get in. Passing on that idea we went on to Alexandria to have lunch at one of Andy's favorite restaurants. We stopped at the Jefferson and Roosevelt Memorials on our way back. While the day was cloudy and not great for picture-taking, it was pretty cool with a nice breeze. This time we hit the Georgetown Cupcake location in Bethesda about 4:30. There was still a long line at this location and it took us 40 minutes to get our dozen cupcakes. Wow - people here haven't heard that cupcakes are "out". I will say that the cupcakes are very good, but they have a cream cheese frosting, which is not my favorite. Pretty much ruined the cupcake for me.

Yesterday was spent at Gettysburg. Unfortunately we had to take 2 cars since there are 6 of us, and it is about 1.5 hours from their house to the visitors' center. We spent 4 hours driving the auto route, and it was fascinating! Again we had a gray day, but it was a comfortable temperature. Beats the heck out of the 97 degree temps back home. Today we intended to go to Mount Vernon, but it is very rainy again. Since it is nearly 2 hours away, we didn't want to gamble on doing a walking tour in the rain. We are going to play Yahtzee instead. Jim flies home at 6:55 today to rescue the dog-sitter, so we can't go too far anyway. The girls and I are coming home Tuesday.

On a side note, the storm I mentioned on Thursday apparently resulted in a lot of damage in Gaithersburg. A fairly significant number of people were without power. Lightening struck a tree which crashed on top of an apartment complex and caught on fire. At our hotel are a number of refugees from the complex. It has been heart-wrenching to listen to their stories in the breakfast room each morning. Today the Red Cross arrived as it sounds like the people have only been given rooms through tonight.

When the sirens went off yesterday afternoon, Jim, Kirby and I headed for the basement, flashlights and a crank generated radio in tow. At 4:30 the power went off. We were cautiously optimistic that the wind had only knocked the power out, but when the storm passed we headed outside. Two doors down a 150 year old oak had fallen across Swon Avenue, taking the power lines down with it. We have been in this situation before, and because only a couple dozen houses are impacted we are waaaaay down on the priority list. What makes it more annoying is that the people across the street never lose power. Apparently they are hooked into the transformer that takes care of the courthouse and police/fire station. Whether it is buried or what, I don't know. But I can tell you that as time crawls by with no power for us and their houses blaze with light, nasty thoughts enter my head. Our basement fills with water and our food spoils, and they watch television and play on their computers. At that point in time, they don't care if we are in the National Historic District and they aren't. They have the power!

Fortunately we have a gas stove, so I was able to make pancakes and eggs for supper. Then I showered early to take advantage of what little light was coming through the bathroom window in the gloomy evening. By 8:30 I was in bed attempting to read by the light of candles and a portable book light. At 9:30 I gave up and went to sleep. Jim in the meantime was worried about the water in the basement, and he and the next door neighbor located a generator to power up our respective sump pumps. (We have a generator but Jim couldn't get it to work. That's helpful, right?) A lady around the corner had the balls to come over later and tell them to turn it off because she and her husband couldn't sleep. She didn't care that our possessions were being destroyed by the water.

Since I had gone to sleep so early, I woke up at 5:30 to complete silence. No hum of electricity in the air. Nor any sound of the generator going next door. Uh, oh... The basement wasn't too flooded, fortunately, so Jim waited until 7:30 to purchase more gas for the generator so he could fire it up again. In the meantime, he was down in the basement attempting again to start ours. He got it going for a bit, and before long the gas fumes permeated the main floor of the house. If his beloved dog wasn't by my side, I would have suspected he was going after my life insurance policy! Even I know you aren't supposed to run those things inside a building. "Well, I had it by the back door and the door was open," he said. Yeah, tell it to the coroner, I was thinking. Honestly, the house still smells like gasoline, despite burning candles and opening windows to let in the 55 degree cool air.

I had enough light coming in the windows to cut fabric for the wall quilt I am making for the remodeled bathroom. At least the whole morning wasn't a waste. The power finally was restored at 12:30 this afternoon. You just don't appreciate how much we rely on electricity until you don't have it. So here's a tip of the bonnet to Laura Ingalls Wilder. You can have your little house on the prairie. I'll keep my house on Maple with its electricity. Except when it storms...