Month: September 2018

Florence fudge

Hurricane Florence is now behind us, and at least we can all agree on this: the fudge was pretty tasty.

Now, lest you think I took a piece of storm-powered debris to the noggin, I’ll make sense of the fudge later.

In South Carolina, the coastline was ordered to evacuate on Monday morning. Plenty of people feel that order was issued a bit premature. However, I will withhold my opinion on that and let the real experts debate it at the 21st Century Algonquin Round Table that is a newspaper Facebook page comment section. Also a great place to shape your opinion on matters as broad as politics and as specific as whether a particular intersection needs a traffic light.

We did not evacuate Monday, as (a) we were not ready and (b) the storm was still a really good ways off. We did not evacuate Tuesday as (b) we were still not ready and (b) the storm was still a really good ways off and (c) “Hey, that place across the street with the awesome Happy Hour is still open! Let’s make our plans there!”

So as we enjoyed a lovely charcuterie plate at Happy Hour, my wife and I strategized. She and our son would leave on Wednesday and head west to stay with family. I would stay back and prep the house and play it by ear.

On Wednesday, they were safe and sound a few hours away, and I had brought most of the the stuff inside that could become projectiles should a storm hit. Our dog took on the very important role of walking outside on occasion and barking at the sky, which he never does. I took this to mean that he felt a storm coming, or he was keeping aliens at bay.

On Thursday, I awoke bright and early to check the storm status. Initial reports had Florence hitting some time as early as Thursday. However, as the week progressed, Florence decided she apparently had some tasks to tend to or something and began taking her sweet time.

It soon became clear that the storm, if it did arrive, would not be here until probably late Friday night. And it was becoming more and more evident that it would hardly even graze where I lived. That said, I was becoming incredibly bored. The house was long-since cleaned. The laundry was long-since done. Netflix queue all caught up. I had googled everything I could possibly want to just to kill time. And that included “How to make fudge.” Why, you ask. Because I was sitting here and thought to myself, “I wonder how you make fudge…”

And then a short while later, I received word that our nearby grocery store would be open until 7 that night. Thus, hurricane fudge time.

I went to the store, and there were only a few people there, mostly buying a few basic essentials. I was hardly buying essentials.

That night, as I enjoyed my evening round of Jeopardy!, I successfully made fudge for the first time. And I was really surprised to learn that it costs about $5 and takes all of about 10 minutes. The next day, with my fudge solidly cooled and ready for sharing, I packed up the dog and the fudge and headed west. I was not so much fleeing a hurricane as I was fleeing the sheer boredom of the week, with maybe a smidge of desiring human interaction other than the grocery clerk and Alex Trebek.

Florence pretty much avoided where I live, although it did pack a nasty wallop north of here. There are a couple of more hurricanes brewing in the Atlantic as I write this, so who knows what will happen next. We’ll just keep an eye on the storm and make sure we are ready to act on a moment’s notice. Or, about 10 minutes notice, as I’ll need to make my hurricane fudge first.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, he now lives in Mt. Pleasant. You can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike or at www.mikeslife.us.

Uncategorized

Go with the Flo

As I write this, Hurricane Florence is sitting out in the Atlantic Ocean deciding what she wants to do.

She’s still a few days away from landfall, so there is really no telling, although I sit well in the middle of the possible cone. Granted, there are thousands of models that have it going miles north and south of me. Of course, there are also models that have Florence driving into my neighborhood, taking a left, parking in my driveway, walking up my sidewalk and ringing the doorbell.

So I’m nothing if not on alert.

My family has lived on the coast for more than four years, so we definitely look at storms differently than we did prior to moving here. Previously, I followed them as an avid weather watcher. Now, I follow them as an avid insurance keeper-up-to-dater.

We have evacuated twice since we have lived here. The first time doesn’t really count, as we were planning to go out of town that weekend anyways. The second time the governor ordered an evacuation, and we politely complied. In South Carolina, evacuations are not classified as “volunteer” or “mandatory.” They are just “evacuations.” It’s the emergency responders’ way of saying, “Yeah, if y’all could not be here creating additional, unnecessary headaches while we work to solve actual problems, that would be super.”

Last year, a storm came a callin’ and my wife and daughter headed out of town prior to it hitting land. There wasn’t an evacuation in order, but they decided it was a good time for a girls’ weekend, so good on them.

My son and I stayed behind and endured some rain and a bit of wind, and our WiFi did flicker on and off a couple of times, so we don’t exactly qualify for survivor awards.

We are going to be sensible, regardless of what Florence does. (And not just because there are a bunch of storms lining up behind her just for sport.)

But sensibility is key. We did not make a run on the grocery store, as plenty of folks have done. Quick question, folks who have raided the milk and bread aisles: What are you going to do with all of that stuff? Unless the answer is “Impenetrable Bread Fort,” I think you may overbought.

The bottled water aisle has also been ransacked, as my wife and I noticed while at the grocery store earlier today. For what it’s worth, during such weather preparation times, those doing their usual grocery shopping should get a special flag for their carts that reads, “Not panicking. Just weekly shopping.” Also, we should get our own check-out line.

As we were checking out, we were chatting with the manager about the run on essentials. We asked him if they had another water shipment planned. He said, “Nope. We’re just directing people to the beer from now on.” I hope he was not kidding, as that’s awesome.

So now we wait. We will keep an eye on social media and follow the updates from our various officials. Odds are more likely that not that the storm will not be a direct hit, but that option is still certainly in the cards.

Should Florence decide to be a massive beast that wants to come and visit my home personally, we will most likely not be here to greet her. If she goes elsewhere and just sends some side effects our way, we will probably be here and will ride it out as we have in the past. Either way, we know we’ve got a few days to decide what we do. And that gives us plenty of time to get to the store. For beer.

Uncategorized

Sick daze

Fortunately, I can report that I am now better. Much better, in particular compared to last week, when I can tell you I was not, in fact, better.

I started being not better on Monday morning. It was a Monday, so I at first wondered if it was just a Monday being a Monday.

I sat in my chair, assessing the situation. Then my body decided to take charge and let me know what the deal was for the rest of the day when it whispered to me, “I am about to ruin your day.”

It started with shivers down my back. Uncomfortable waves rippled down my back and sides. Then the fluctuations in temperature. One minute, I was freezing cold. The next minute, I felt like I was in a sauna. And then for fun let’s throw in coughing. And these were those super fun nonproductive coughs that are really just barking loudly over and over, and when you stop and try and take a breath your body says, “Uh, what are you doing? We’re coughing for the time being.” And then you go back to coughing.

I came home and made it to my bed. I went to my go-to method of stopping an impending illness: NyQuil time. I do not know if NyQuil has actual redeeming medical value other than knocking you out long enough for most illnesses to have run their course. I hoped this was the case this time: (1) Take NyQuil (2) Go unconscious for extended period of time (3) awake miraculously cured.

Alas, this was no match even for NyQuil. When I awoke a few hours later, I was soaking wet. I’m not sure about your sleep habits, but there is no version of mine in which waking up soaking wet is a good thing.

I put my hand to my forehead, and it felt like a cool, moist salmon. Fever broke, I figured. Good sign, right? Apparently, this was only the sign that I was at the very beginning of the Fever Roller Coaster. About an hour later, as I was simultaneously burning up and freezing. I took my temperature. 100.1. I texted my wife. About 10 minutes later I took it again. 100.7. I texted my wife. Ten more minutes. 101. Text. Ten more. 101.7. Text. She finally responded. “Stop taking your temperature over and over.”

By the time the evening had rolled around, I had taken several fun turns on the Fever Roller Coaster as well as several exciting coughing fits that lasted, by my estimate, 457 hours.

I took my evening dose of NyQuil and went to bed. That lasted for about 10 minutes, as the fever and the cough got together and reminded me that we were not sleeping tonight. We were having fever come and go and coughing non stop.

I decided I would go to the doctor in the morning if I was still running a fever. Fast forward to next morning, and I had about doubled up the train wreck I was the day before. To the doctor. After a series of tests and pokes and prods, I received my official diagnosis: “You’ve got the funk.”

I was given some antibiotics and a cough syrup that thinks NyQuil is simply adorable. I went home and, to be honest, the next day or so is kind of a blur, as I spent most of my time in and out of fever dreams and in a prescription cough syrup Wonderland that pretty much morphed reality and said fever dreams into one big crazy Twilight Zone.

So I’m back to being human, which is a vast improvement. Hopefully, it will be a long time until I am sick like this again. But, when it does happen, I know what to do. I’ll text my wife every 10 minutes with updates.

Childhood Family

Back to school

Well, this was certainly a different start to the school year.

Fifteen years ago, my wife and I took our daughter to her first day of 3K. I don’t remember what she wore that day, but I can guarantee you it was not overalls, as her mom was there. If you see any school pictures of my daughter in overalls, you can pretty much bet that her mom was not in charge that morning. I, on the other hand, had overalls as the go-to because (a) she looked really cute in them and (b) I’m not really great at coordinating cute outfits for tiny girl humans.

A few years later, her brother started 3K. Fifty-fifty chance on overalls on that day.

For the next 12 years, the two of them started school on the same day. We would always do the requisite first day of school picture, as is required by federal law. (Side note: To anyone who gets grouchy about people posting first-day pictures on Facebook, you should really just take that day off from social media. To me, first day pics are kinda the best part about social media. You get to see your friends and family and their kids growing up, and you get to see who’s wearing overalls and thus had dad in charge of first day outfits.)

That run has ended, however, as we dropped our daughter off at college this year. So a few thoughts on this year’s first day(s):

Move-in went surprisingly smooth. We loaded up two cars with Allie’s stuff and headed off to the University of South Carolina. When we arrived, we were instructed to park and unload all of her stuff on the curb. We were told we had 30 minutes to get stuff into the dorm, which was about three blocks away. Yeah, not happening.
It only took us about three trips, but we finally got everything into her room. Maybe an hour. Fortunately, those in charge of monitoring the unloading were understanding.
On the second day of her being there, she attended the Beyonce/Jay-Z concert, which students got for a mere $25. Before you think that’s an amazing deal, please remember the tuition cost required to be eligible for said deal.
My daughter’s first day of class was on Thursday at 4:30. It was weird not being there for her first day, but I did not allow myself to get too sentimental. After all, this was what we worked for over the last 18 years. This was the best possible outcome of our parenting. I did send her a text that read, “Don’t mess this up. We’ve invested too much in you to be a family shame.” Ha! I kid A little bad parenting humor. I texted, “Go with the overalls.”
While adjusting to our daughter not being at home has been weird, we have noticed that she had one particular utilitarian trait that we hadn’t truly appreciated: She got the mail, every single day. When it finally occurred to my wife four days after dropping her off, we had a mailbox stuffed with mail. Note to selves: The mail fetcher is gone.
Our son’s start to school was uneventful, fortunately. He is a high school sophomore, so preparing him for school is a relatively easy exercise. “You need anything for school?” “Nah.” “Clothes?” “Nah.” “Supplies?” “Nah.” “Nothing?” “Pop-Tarts, maybe?” Pop-Tarts it is.
His first day of school picture was a quick shot of him in the passenger seat in front of school, giving the look that only a 15-year-old can give, one that says, “Make it quick, Dad, before my friends see this.”

So I guess this is the new norm, and it will all change up again in a couple of years when our son heads off to college. But that’s life. It’s what we’ve worked for. It’s what we’ve been aiming for the whole time. No reason to wallow in self-pity because kids are moving on. I simply won’t do that. Now it you’ll excuse me, I think I want to go put on some overalls.