Well, I Guess That Answers That Question

It turns out unripe mangoes that have been knocked off the tree too soon by a violent storm will ripen up just fine, thank you very much, on the kitchen counter if left alone and the cats don't decide to play with them.

And now some of the ripe ones are falling and suddenly there are dozens of mangoes to chop up. Or give away.

My brother has taken a couple dozen whole mangoes off to work to bestow on his co-workers. I have spent three days cutting up the rest. Not counting the bowls full we have already eaten (my brother takes one to work almost every day for his lunch), there are five or six full containers now in the refrigerator waiting to be made into salsa or chutney or just spooned onto ice cream or eaten with other fruit or just plain. But, at least there are no more on the counter for now and I am completely caught up.

Until tomorrow.

One Close Call

Holy Shit!!

I never want to be that close to a lightning strike ever again!

We're back in the cycle of afternoon thunderstorms and some of them have been pretty intense. Yesterday, I was coming out of the library as a storm approached (actually I was just stepping out long enough to make sure I had my car windows rolled up). The sun was still out although there were massive clouds gathering all around, including right over head. I looked up just in time to see the flash.

It forked into two main branches with a number of smaller ones splitting off even further. One branch arced over the library and the other came pretty much straight down. The crash of thunder shook the building and everything around about while the after-image was still burning into my retina. I could feel the concussive effect of the collapsing air pocket, much like standing close in to a fireworks display.

The crew of Mexican gardeners working on the lawn and the plantings at the base of the palm trees didn't react at all, but then they were all wearing industrial strength earphones to deaden the roar of their own equipment. I'd say that's a testimonial to the headgear's effectiveness.

We had another storm last night, after I got home, which moved directly overhead and was intense enough to freak out the cats. And another one is rolling in as I type. Still, I can't imagine I'll ever get that up close and personal with a lightning bolt again.

Oopsie!

Went in for my platelet donation today. The "new" phlebotomist (the same one I had last time, new to this location, not to the hospital system or the profession) had me again and, again, she did an excellent job picking a vein and maintaining the draw without me making the machine beep all over the place. But . . ..

She pressed the wrong button.

She pressed the wrong button when she started my session and, instead of donating the usual unit of platelets, I ended up giving two units of platelets and one of whole blood.

It's not a problem per se (my platelet count was up and my iron is good) it's just that it wasn't the plan and nobody noticed until I was almost finished when I looked at the screen on the apheresis machine and noticed the column indicating platelets processed was maxed out (as it should be when done) yet she was telling me I had ten more minutes to go. Then I noticed another column, which had never been active during any other session of mine, rapidly counting up milliliters of . . . something.

The bags were obscured by the screen itself so I didn't notice them until staff realized what had happened but, yes, there were indeed three of them and they were full. Two white and one red, all from the same vineyard.

The good news is: I didn't beep even once, a record for me. The bad news is: I'm tired and my fingertips are wrinkly as if I just got out of a long bath.

I think I deserved the T-shirt this time.

I'm going to take a nap, now.

Chutney, Anyone?

We haven't had a storm like this weekend's one in over a year. I could tell by the way the cats freaked out.

It was a pretty good one, too. Came up out of the Gulf with howling winds, lashing rains whipping horizontally off the roof, lightning flashing all around and thunder rattling the windows. The kids didn't know what to make of it. They'd never experienced anything close to it in their short lives and sat in the middle of the living room shivering and crying softly. I tried to cuddle them but it didn't seem to help. They couldn't make up their minds if they wanted to be held or left alone.

Their mom, on the other hand, new exactly how she wanted to deal with it, although I didn't figure that out until after the storm was pretty well over. When it had died down to a mere downpour, I went into the kitchen and, while I was chopping tomatoes, the pantry door opened. There was Jasmine. When the storm started she'd managed to open the door, climb inside the pantry and close it behind her. She rode it out in the dark, but at least she was in a confined, dry place which made her happy. If we ever do get flooded out and have to evacuate, at least I'll know where to look for her.

Our low spot out back flooded as per usual but drained away again almost immediately. The only real down side to the storm (aside from a few broken branches in the street) was that it knocked down over two dozen mangoes--none of them anywhere near ripe, yet.

I collected them all once the rain tapered off to a drizzle and they're on the kitchen counter but I doubt more than half a dozen will ripen enough to be salvaged. Fortunately, there are still about twice as many still on the tree.

In the meantime, I'm off to find recipes for unripe Alice mangoes.

A Midsummer Night's Light Show

When I returned home yesterday evening the sky was overcast (we're back in a cycle of clear, bright mornings and rainy afternoons/evenings) so I settled in to watch the Rays lose another baseball game and didn't think about the night sky until I went to take the trash out before going to bed (about 1:30 a.m.).

The clouds near us had all gone away and the nearly full Moon was so bright it turned the sky a dark pale blue. Despite the glare, Mars was still visible just to the west and Saturn just to the east of the Moon. It was too bright to use the telescope on them, though.

However, the best part was much closer to home. Although the sky overhead was clear there was a huge arc of cumulus clouds along the horizon from south to west, all illuminated by moonglow. In addition, both ends of the arc were lit up by lightning. I couldn't really see the detail off to the west, only occasional flashes, but the thunder cell to the south was continuously active with streaks and bursts of light chasing across and around the clouds, often behind but sometimes with lightning bolts in front arcing across the sky and looking like nothing so much as an animation of nerve impulses racing through a brain.

There was no breeze and the clouds were far enough away (about 50 miles, or just south of Marco Island. I checked the weather radar later) that no thunder could be heard. Just a silent, unending, living light show under the Moon and planets and motionless palms.

I stood there for a good half hour just enjoying this awesome world.

But, Then Again, It's Not the Last Minute, Yet

Well, Hurricane Season has officially started as of the beginning of the month and, although the daily rain cycle of last week has broken and the skies are clear again, already the local weather reports have added a special warning-imminent crisis segment just for hurricanes, of which there are none around and only one potential one way over the horizon on the Pacific coast of Mexico.

But, y'know, that named tropical storm could cross over Mexico losing most of its energy on the way and depositing the remnants into the Gulf where they might survive as some sort of disturbance that has a theoretical chance of affecting us. Someday. Maybe. It could happen.

It's never too early to start panicking.

On the other hand, it's been almost a decade since our last real hurricane and an awful lot of people have moved in since then and don't know--or just plain forgot--what a true cyclonic storm can be like. I know we've let our own food stocks slip a bit, and we haven't tested any of our batteries, lights, etc., recently.

My brother got a quote on replacing our roof but that's not something he intends to do immediately so, if we do get hit, we will be under a 25 year old roof.

And somebody official (not sure who) just released a new flood map of the county that puts us under threat for 3 feet of water from storm surge although it's not clear what size storm they're referencing, or its likelihood, or where exactly they measured the three feet from. If it's from the main road we could still be mostly O.K. since the house is built on a small rise (coincidentally, about three feet) above street level.

And now, of course, if we do have to evacuate, we'll need something to carry the cats in.

So maybe a little panic-mongering from the local weather folk is what we need to start prepping after all.