(Either that or "California Dreaming" by the Mamas and the Papas. You hear that one A LOT all winter on the radio stations up here. A LOT. I can see marching bands playing that song as they march down the street on gray and cloudy days, which we have an abundance of during winter.)
Right now, it's nearly November, the month when the real Edmund Fitzgerald met its watery fate in the waters of Lake Superior back in 1975. Thanks to the song, it's the most famous of the weather-related maritime disasters on the Great Lakes--but hardly the only one in a region that has seen many wild storms during fall. (Like this one, which took over 250 lives back in 1913.)
We are about to be hit with another. The big feature of this one is expected to be the wind. Even here, far inland from any of the Great Lakes, they are expecting gusts over 50 miles per hour. The worst of the wind is expected in eastern Wisconsin--over 60 mph gusts. Most of the Wisconsin-U.P. region has a High Wind Warning in effect.
Interesting--especially since Tuesday night happens to be the first round of high school football playoffs in Wisconsin. I had been planning to go to one of the games--it's only about 35 miles away. Wisconsin has such a tight playoff schedule (the second round of games is on Saturday, just four days later) that the games have to be played barring some absolutely incredible weather.
Will this turn out to be incredible enough? Imagine trying to pass a football in 50 mph winds on a high school field that has no protection from the gale/storm (unlike all those college and pro stadiums with seating all around the field).
If that's not scary enough for you, imagine trying to drive a school bus full of kids in winds like that. Talk about "high profile vehicles." Now that I think about it, Wisconsin officials probably should be thinking about postponing this round of games despite the schedule chaos it would cause. Cheerleaders will be flying through the air, otherwise. Little kids, too.
All this reminds me of a story from about 20 years ago. One of our teams had made the playoffs and was playing in a town on the north shore of Lake Michigan. It was a very windy early November day--sunny but windy.
A memorable day. I saw things like passes being knocked down by the wind and punts going almost straight up--one went for exactly 1 yard. And I saw something else during halftime, while the marching band was performing.
The band had flag girls who were holding flags while the rest of the band played. This time, the wind had ripped the skirt of one of the flag girls. Of course, I observed closely, and later I duly noted that "She resolutely held her flag with one hand while holding her skirt together with the other to cover her predicament."
****
It's been a while since I wrote about the cats, right? OK, then. let's get you caught up on their adventures.
They are, after all, creatures of habit. Lately, Max has been sleeping a lot in our bedroom--either on top of our bed or, presumably, under it. Close enough so that when I sit at the end of the bed (when changing clothes), Max springs up on the bed right away and is purring and meowing at me.
He gets all excited when I pet him. As he waits, he is rubbing is head against me and making excited throat sounds. Max likes to get petted a little rougher than most cats I have known. He especially likes it when you hold out your hand, palm downwards, near him--he rises up and presses the top of his head against the palm. Over and over, while tromping with his front feet. Left, right, left, right.
Then he lies on his side and back, four feet in the air, and treads the air, buzzing happily. We keep that up for a few minutes. Inevitably he starts licking himself, and that's when I return to what I wanted to do.
Remember my recent post about the e-reader? Well, I had to get a picture of the thing while Max was on the bed. He started by looking at me ...
Then he rubbed against the e-reader as I tried to get my picture ...
And then he decided to try out the camera lens ...
Very subtle about getting attention, isn't he?
Just realized that Max has been a part of our family for two years this month. Max was a sad kitty when we got him. Did I ever tell you the story?
He had been at the shelter about 10 months when we adopted him--he had been found roaming outdoors in winter while struggling with an abscessed tooth. They fixed the tooth and then tried to find him a home. It took a while. I remember he was there when we adopted Charlie back in February. Just him in his little cage. He had been adopted out once, but it didn't work, and the people at the shelter said that he got depressed and stopped eating after he was returned.
Today, Max is a happy cat. When it's warm out, he sits in an open window, breaths in the fresh air and listens to the birds as he sunbathes. He has a nice soft bed to sleep on (when we're not using it; he doesn't use it at night). He has other windows to sleep in and innumerable hiding places. He's got staircases to sprint up and down and long hallways to dash along. He's got people to chase him (which he loves) and pet him when he finally allows himself to be caught. The life of a happy cat in his forever home.
As for Charlie, she seems to like the e-reader, too, for when I go to bed and try to read a little while, she soon hops up on the bed and walks up by my side. Meow, meow, purr, purr. She likes to lie down on one of my arms. I can manage to hold the reader and hit the "turn page" button with one hard, but it's not easy. After a while, she walks away. Sometimes to the foot of the bed, sometimes off the bed and out of the room.
She usually spends the night on the kids' old beanbag chair in our room--we have an old baby blanket on it. That's good until it gets close to morning. Sometime between 3 and 5 a.m., she hops up on the bed and walks up by my side. Meow, meow, purr, purr. She lies by my side, and I rub her tummy. Purr, purr, purr. Life is good.
At times she moves away, and I roll on my other side to put my arm around my wife and maybe doze off again. But then Charlie comes back for another round. Meow, meow? My wife understands about cats, though.
Everything changes, however, when Charlie's radar picks up a certain sound from the hallway: the sound of Max "talking" as he walks around. Suddenly she looks towards the door, wriggles out of my arm, hops off the bed and moves over to see what Max is up to.
A day or two ago, she was only in my arm about a half minute before the Max alert sounded.
I guess that shows where I rank.
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