Storm Watch

I was driving out Atlantic Avenue yesterday morning and there was this big white van and banks of lights and all sorts of TV equipment and, sure enough, there was Jim Cantore — the Drama Queen of the Weather Channel — getting spastic over the storm headed this way. I wish the Weather Channel wouldn’t do this. Every time there is a storm scheduled they send someone up here to broadcast it and then everyone I know who lives in other parts of the country and who knows I live in Gloucester calls to make sure I am okay. I am okay. Jim Cantore is a little spastic but I’m fine.

I love the way weathermen get all lathered up over big weather events. That must be an occupational hazard — weather is your thing so you just can’t help getting fired up when it is acting dramatic — even though it also means that a lot of people are going to be miserable and maybe even die. Oh well.

Yesterday was also the eleventh anniversary of my mother’s death. Only the day she died was on a Monday and was, thus, the same day as the running of the Boston Marathon. That is happening today this year and I do not envy those poor folks considering what the weather is looking like out there. Personally, the idea of running a marathon is to me on a par with going to the moon but I know there are those who live for it and I wish them well out there in this wretched weather.

I had a nice day yesterday. I spent an hour on the phone with an old friend I hadn’t talked to in over 20 years. That was nice. Phyllis and I were friends when we lived in Houston. We took belly dancing lessons together and did a lot of partying together too. She’s in Baltimore now and planning on moving to Hawaii to go to work for our mutual friend Michael. It was Michael who reconnected us after all these years and it was great to talk to her.

It’s such a strange thing when you reconnect with someone like that because you start talking about things you thought you had forgotten and it seemed like no time has passed at all. Twenty years have gone by and yet, in a way, it is like yesterday. It felt so good to catch up on the lives of people I had all but forgotten about and a bit humbling to realize how much I have forgotten. But it was a lovely way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon.

I heard on Writer’s Almanac this morning that today is the birthday of J.M. Synge who wrote the play “Riders to the Sea”. I saw that play when I was still in high school — probably a high school production — and I still remember it. It is distinguished in my mind because of the role knitting plays in it — the drowned fishermen are identified by the patterns in their knitted sweaters. Funny how that has stayed with me all these years.

So we have another stormy day ahead and Jim Cantore is in weatherman heaven. The Boston Marathon will be a trial for those poor souls. I have warm thoughts of a time 20 years ago thanks to a conversation with an old friend and, as always, there is work to do. So, as Garrison Keillor says, “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.”

Thanks for reading.