The big storm and it's aftermath.

Last night a really wicked storm passed through. First the sky turned as dark as the night, but it wasn't black like the night sky, it was more charcoal gray. Then we heard the booms-thunder! The sky lit up as the rain came down. It was a very heavy rain at first and we ran around the apartment closing windows. The rain started to come down in sheets and hail began hitting the windows. The rain came down even harder, so hard, I felt like I was inside a car through a car wash. I was half expecting the "Simonize" light to go on.

The rain, the wind and the hail tapered off and eventually stopped. The sky started to turn blue a little. I went on-line and learned that a tornado warning was posted for Brooklyn and Queens, an hour earlier.

I went for a walk in the neighborhood and saw around Carroll Park branches and small limbs of trees were down. I realized that these were all London Planes. It looked like the big Elm tree, the smaller Callery Pears, the Little Leaf Lindens and the Ginkos were all intact.

At least I thought.

This morning, two blocks away from the house.

(Which to me, is a pretty amazing site)

Until I saw this

Not one, not two, but three cars managed to squeeze themselves into the space between two downed trees!

And me,

being the true Brooklynite that I am,

found myself thinking--

WOW!

WHAT A GREAT SPOT!

Alternate side of the street parking is suspended on

Thursdays for the next 2 weeks

and they're on the

Thursday side of the street!!!!!!!!!

They don't have to move those cars for the next 21 days!

That's 10/7 @ 11:30am

Did those guys ever find themselves a sweet spot!

YO! A BIG WOO-HOO! TO YOUS!

DAMN! SOME GUYS HAVE ALL THE LUCK!

9/18/10
addendum:

Well, maybe not!

Today at Lunch

Today I went out for lunch with my husband. I never go out for lunch during the work week, but today was special. Work was slow because it's Rosh Hashanah and it was finally nice out. We took our binoculars hoping to see some warblers. They say that there was a big push last night in Cape May (but by the time the birds are flying over Cape May, in their North-South migration, it's too late to see them in NYC). I also grabbed my camera to document any birds that we wanted to ID later on.

We were in the right place at the right time to see this little one. And much to our surprise a second one comes flying over.

It's not like I have a great camera, these pictures were taken on a Kodak Easy Share camera on auto focus. I was amazed to see the results.

Summer is almost over-hurray!!!!

I **HATE** summer. I hate the heat, the humidity, the smells of unwashed people in the subway. I hate everything about the summer, except one thing, it's light until 9pm. That is the only thing that I like about summer. Even as a child I felt dead in the summer, and alive once the autumn set in.

This summer was the second worse summer in my life. The first was the summer of 1997, I was in a terrible car accident. This summer my dear, sweet husband was treated for prostate cancer. I was so scared that he would be so sick with the side effects of the treatment, but he wasn't.

I did go birdwatching this summer, but the heat sort of wiped me out. The pain in my back and the pain from the surgical adhesions made it difficult to walk and take deep breaths. The heat against my skin felt like lit matches were being pressed against it. When I wore sun block the grease clogged my pores and I felt like my skin was suffocating.

This weekend, Labor Day Weekend, the temperatures dropped into the 60's and 70's and I felt like myself again. I was able to walk relatively pain free (albeit it after 2 arthritis strength Tylenol, 2 Alleve and an Ultram in me) and did lots of birding.

We saw many different types of peeps and I am getting better at identifying them.

Stilt Sandpiper with Western Sandpiper in the foreground.

Nice close up of the Western Sandpiper.

This is why peeps drive you nuts when you go birding.

Here is another shot of different birds

Here is a Stilt Sandpiper (in the back), a Semipalmated Sandpiper (Right)

and the Western Sandpiper (Left).

Short Billed Dowitcher (Left) Long Billed Dowitcher (Right)

it's the length of the bill and the size of the humps you look for when trying to figure them out.

My Favorite Bird of All Time

American Oyster Catcher with 2 Willets