What's your weather?

[apl68]

Short but heavy shower late yesterday afternoon.  When it started looking rainy we joked that our mowing contractor would probably show up, since they tend to get out there just before a rain strikes.  And would you believe they did show up, sure enough!

Possible thunderstorms in the forecast for tomorrow.

[apl68]

Storming now.  Looks like it's going to kill attendance at our first summer story time scheduled for this morning.  Maybe it will have cleared in time for the one we have scheduled for this afternoon.

[mamselle]

Sorry to hear that.

(Do you give them a rain check?)

M.

[Juvenal]

No price is set on the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer.
And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;

etc.

--James Russell Lowell

[Today is perfection]

[mamselle]

It's beautiful here, too...

M.

[apl68]

We have downed power lines and outages in town due to this morning's storm.  There's a street partially blocked across the road from the library right now.  Fortunately we haven't so far lost power at work.

[mamselle]

I was hearing about tornados further north and east, hope they didn't affect You!

M.

[apl68]

The whole neighborhood across the road--which includes my own house--is blacked out.  A tree fell squarely across a power line and tore down lines and poles for blocks up and down the street.  I walked over there at lunch and again a little while ago during a break, and have yet to see the first sign of any work being done to restore power in the neighborhood.  I assume that line crews are working hard somewhere.  Elsewhere in town there have been outages here and there which have largely been restored. 

I have a worrying feeling that our neighborhood is being saved for last due to triage rules that leave the worst-afflicted areas for last.  I have almost no hope at all that we'll see power restored until sometime tomorrow.  If it's even then!  It shouldn't be too hot to sleep this evening, but over the weekend we're supposed to see our first heat advisories of the summer.

I guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet and buy a home generator.  We've been losing power for a day or more due to storms at least once a year for years now.  The storms have just gotten to be that bad.  It's as if some of the curse that lies over our neighboring state to the south has bled over the line.  At least we aren't getting annual hurricanes like they have now.

At least there have been no reports of tornadoes or loss of life around the state from this latest batch of storms.  And the library has come through fine, although the limb debris blown across our yard gives our Chamber of Commerce "Business Yard of the Month" sign a somewhat ironic look.

[clean]

record highs expected.  no rain for a while. None expected.  Drought conditions are around, and water restrictions are on the horizon as the city's water sources near 40% capacity.
African dust in the gulf is restricting any tropical rains.

Electric companies are urging power conservation or blackouts could result. 

[ab_grp]

I hope your electricity comes back on, apl68, and that yours stays on, clean! We have considered getting a generator as well.  We don't lose power as often or for as long as we used on on the east coast (knock on wood), but it can be pretty rough when we do given how hot it gets.

Speaking of heat, I regret to announce that apparently the HVAC unit got to our state, traveled down the highway past my house, and kept going another 6 or so hours, missing the delivery window for installation on Monday.  So, no installation until two weeks from now.  I am really, really hoping the current unit holds up! Highs should be right around 100, so fingers crossed.  I don't know what level of incompetence or just plain malice has led to this "mistake," but I am unhappy. 

[mamselle]

Makes one wish it were possible to stand out along the berm with a signal flag, yelling, "This way!!! My AC unit goes here!!!"

M.

[ab_grp]

Mamselle, had I known it was going to pass right by, I would have stood in the middle of the highway and taken my chances.

[Langue_doc]

ab_grp, this is the height of incompetence. Surely truck drivers know how to use their navigation devices. I can see how someone can take a wrong turn, but to keep driving for another six hours sounds insane. I hope someone listened to your complaints and assured you that the unit would be delivered and installed without further hassles or delays.

[ab_grp]

Thanks, Langue_doc.  I am not sure what the deal is, whether they did stop here in my city but "forgot" to drop the unit off, or didn't stop at all, or got lost, or got abducted by aliens.  Given how ridiculous the delivery "mistake" is, my husband thinks it's possible that the HVAC service company is lying because they overscheduled and can't do the installation when they had planned, so they are blaming it on the unit not being delivered in time by the manufacturers.  Of course, we don't get access to any of the ordering or shipping info, so who knows.  We should have gotten this done during the winter when it wouldn't be as big a deal to be held hostage.  Of course, we needed heat, too, and this unit does both.  Can't win.

[mamselle]

It's also possible the delivery has to go through a receiving facility first.

One place I worked, we had a weird out-of-town site for the last step in the FEDEX chain of facilities.

I think we ended up having the thing addressed to someone who lived nearby, and had them pick it up and bring it in a couple times when time was short.

For stuff like DNA material it was a pain because it had to stay temperature controlled, etc., and we didn't trust one of the drivers to remember to bring it out right away, so we'd pick it up then, too.

It was tricky showing chain-of-handling proof in those cases, but getting the material and being able to work with it meant we had to.

Such fun....

M.