After Irene

Simply by being there several times a week I become a shoreline expert -- sort of. I seethe changes. I was eager to see what Irene's winds did to "my" beach. We had almost no rain here but a day of continuous wind, which didn't seem to me to be especially violent. Yesterday I did not take my camera but today I did. I was there before 9:00 when almost no one else was around. The above picture is the shore, swept clean of nearly all loose sand. Most of it seems to have landed on the other side of the spit. It buried some of the dune grass closest to the shore. Today I notice that the tide has dub 3 or 4 inch deep trenches halfway up the beach. At that hour tbe tide was about as far out as it was going to get. So the beach was at its widest.
The top photo was taken from near where the public access is. The distant view is toward the end of the mile-long spit of land - with a fresh water inlet on the other side. It's only 50 to 100 feet wide until 3/4s of the way out where the seashore curves and the back side widens into a small marsh with several little kettle ponds. At the very end is a rocky area that is under the tide about half the time.
Out where the marshy part is the sand was deposited in the grass, very deeply in some places. Here are two pictures of new dunes covering the grass. Also the shore of the inlet side is much narrower suggesting some of this sand is from there also.
The rocky area is a sort of fat period at the end of a bent exclamation mark. Last year it was bordered with gnarled little trees, all living and apparently healthy. Over the winter most of those trees disappeared. Apparently the sand beneath their roots was eaten away and then they were carried away by the tide. Only one, the largest, of those gnarled trees was left this spring. But its roots were exposed and it did not sprout leaves. People used it to hang broken sea shells on which became plentiful as much as a month ago. Now this tree has been much broken -- the remnants of a bonfire on the very end of the spit shows lots of twisted limbs from this tree that apparently didn't burn well. Since Irene it's roots are almost all exposed and it's this sad wraith of what it was a year ago.
A short distance before the dead tree is this larger, still healthy one. Until Irene it was back from the shore a couple of feet, one had to climb a low bank to get to it to hang broken seashells on it's lower branches which were without leaves although the upper ones had and still have leaves. Obviously it is the next one that will be deprived of its footing and may follow the fate of it's neighbor by next spring.

A woman I often chat with on the beach -- she comes possibly more regularly than I -- said she thought the "period" part of the spit might become an island. That makes sense to me. It will be interesting to see. As can be seen in these pictures, this is a lovely and usually peaceful place for an early morning walk. It was a very beautiful morning beneath that sky where the temperature was about 70.

Too Good Not to Pass On

Let us put our old folks in prisons and the criminals in old folks' homes! This way the elders get daily showers, exercise and fresh air. No one can steal from them... and they receive money instead of having to pay for everything. The criminals get cold food and have to stay in their rooms all by themselves. No money is given them, the lights go out at 20.00... and showers only once a week. Copy this and watch how far this travels.

The above was quoted on a blog, not attributed except to say it was originally in Finnish. Think about it. Our prison population and our elderly population must be approximately equal. Where do we put our money?

It came, it went

Hurricane Irene came, huffed and puffed, left a mess like a two year old having a tantrum and left.

We on Cape Cod got only wind. Of course, since the place is full of trees, limbs, big and small, came down, so the electricity went off -- about 2 P.M. and came on at 5:30 A.M. That's it. A dim night, candles and book light did the trick but it was an early to be night. Which meant a early to wake morning -- very early. At 3 A.M. the silence was profound, the darkness deep, and when I went out to see if I could see anything amiss what I saw was a sky full of brilliant stars -- even a quick glimpse of a shooting star. With no ambient interference I could gaze at the sky in its magnificence as people used to see it before electricity.

I went back to bed and lay awake some time pondering a morning headline, "Thousands lose power." By then it was hundreds of thousands ... Power became metaphor as well as technological fact. Power to see in the dark, power to cook, to keep food cold, to entertain themselves at home [except for the many battery run gadgets] And many other kinds of power that are taken for granted. A so-called "life style" we think we need but which our ancestors lived without. We regained power to see the stars, hear crickets, know silence. Forced out of routines, some of us reflect on essentials and that we are powerless to live the life we think is ours without the power of electricity.

Technology and Me

The old dog new tricks thing -- I am a slow adopter of new technology. I don't yet have a cell phone. Not because the technology is a problem but because I surmise, so far, that I don't need either that constant contact[ability] [I don't like any phone very much and tend to procrastinate about making calls] or that amount of extras geegaws. Yes, there are times it would be marginally more convenient to call someone when I'm not at home and even less marginally more convenient to receive calls. And I'll get one some day, who knows when?

I'm a bit famous in my family for having an ATM card so long before I tried to use it that it had expired. Now I use an ATM for nearly every banking need, but I still don't pay bills online. When ALL bills can be paid online I supposed I'll do it. I didn't use the Internet for a long time, now I can hardly imagine not having that convenience, likewise the microwave. I AM adaptable. But I still believe many technologies are more trouble than they are convenience. And I like writing and receiving real letters.

This new car won my heart when I got home with it and had trouble taking the key out. A little message appeared on what I call the supra-dashboard that read, "to remove key, push inward, turn left and pull." Viola!! I was so impressed that it immediately responded to my problem I wanted to kiss it [but didn't]. It will, the manual says, tell me many other useful things, like how many more miles I can expect to drive on the amount of gas in the tank. It will tell me how ecologically I am driving, when the tires need more air. Will it tell me when to put on lipstick and comb my hair before getting out to go to meet someone? That would be nice but I guess personal grooming is my own problem. So I have a love-em and sometimes leave-em attitude about technology, I'll never be a total convert, I'm too stubborn for that.

Did It!

Okay, so I did it, I gained a few dollars in the dickering and I leased a 2012 Honda Civic which, contrary to the way this picture turned out, is not blue at all. It's charcoal gray with a bit of opalescence -- and that opalescent paint picked up the color of the sky and trees above. I like this blue a bit better but it wasn't an actual option.

The deciding factor was the configuration of the interior -- especially the way information is displayed in an extremely easy to read way. With all the digital wonders in other areas, the info age is moving into automobiles, in this case, in a way that I find very helpful. Approximately how many more miles I can travel on the amount of gas in the tank, my exact speed [in LED digits] as I drive are only two examples. Love both of them. I think I am going to be quite happy with this car. And, of course, I have the option to buy it when the lease is up. Meanwhile I have a peace of mind I did not have with the former 4th hand car that had done a good job but was totally wearing out. So I have a sense of satisfaction this evening and I think I'll sleep well now that I'm no longer mulling choices awake and asleep.

Rite of Passage

Buying a new or used car, or leasing one, is a rite of passage for many young people, their wheels to freedom. If they aren't among the fortunate whose parents gift them a car as a graduation or birthday present, buying their firs car is a very significant indicator of adulthood.

Many women of my generation, including myself, have a some time bought a car. But I feel that women of my age [and generation]are unlikely to be buying [or leasing] cars since many have husbands who are happy to undertake that task as cars have always seemed to us "Men's" prerogative. And others of my age have sons or sons-in-law or daughters who do the dirty work. I had a talk/consultation with Son-in-law yesterday with many of hte cliches about bargaining points. Says he, it's not greatly different than bargaining with that sales man in Turkey for a leather coat, the same ploys are useful.

However I talk ed to a no pressure salesperson who wasn't concerned that I said I needed the numbers and time to think about them. That was this morning, I think I'll go to another dealership shorty and see what the offers there are. I'm a little disinclined to comparison shopping when I liked the first guy's approach and numbers But self-respect says I really should or I'll feel a bit chump-ish. Of course we can be slaves to the cliches about comparison shopping too. A few dollars difference may be offset by a different color paint job. The time is here for a decision and it will get made, perhaps in the wee hours of the night.

It Wouldn't Happen Here

"In the five months since the disaster struck, people have turned in thousands of wallets found in the debris, containing $48 million in cash.

More than 5,700 safes that washed ashore along Japan's tsunami-ravaged coast have also been hauled to police centers by volunteers and search and rescue crews. Inside those safes officials found $30 million in cash. One safe alone, contained the equivalent of $1 million.

The National Police Agency says nearly all the valuables found in the three hardest hit prefectures, have been returned to their owners."


The above quote is from a Japanese newspaper. I'm sad that I know this would never happen in the US. I think also of the reputed million [or is it billions?] of dollar in paper money that were said to have disappeared in Iraq just after our invasion there.

Yes, I've heard some anecdotal stores of lost wallets being returned to people I know, but these true stories were related with surprise, awe and almost unbelieving gratitude. I read no such stories after hurricane Katrina or after the terrible tornadoes last spring. What about the safes in Joplin, MO?