I might chase a storm or two,
like Hurricane Earl, but I sure as heck ain't
The Duke of anything.
But my friend whose birthday is commemorated
in this article is and always will be
a Duchess of whatever she sets her mind and heart to.
Blessya.
A few years ago I came online because of concern about the oil spill sponsored forya by the likes of wayward Tony Hayward—then the CEO of British Petroleum (now in hiding in Putin’s Russia at last check) and Dick Cheney’s Haliberton. I was upset that New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast were once again being threatened due to political and economic greed following the inept incompetence of the bureaucrats and politicians involved just a few years prior following the catastrophe that was Hurricane Katrina and the Bush Administration’s notion that launching wars overseas was a higher priority than taking care of our victims here at home. During that spill the weather was a constant threat since the months long spill occurred throughout that year’s hurricane season.
With intent, BP killed 11 men, countless fish, birds mammals
and family pets with their greed and oil spill in the Gulf.
I am an animal lover, especially of cats and dogs and I
learned about the desperation of families devastated by that spill who had to make
the nightmarish choice between keeping a roof over their heads and food on
their plates or turn their pet family members over to a shelter. Shelter
populations in the region bulged beyond capacity, and more cats and dogs were
documented as killed by the BP criminal spill (which killed 11 men the day of
the explosion on the oil platform in the worst of the tragedy) than wild
mammals. I was angry and came online to raise money for one cause in
particular, the awesome and spunky LASPCA- http://la-spca.org/
- and in the end I wound up writing about this and much more. 12,000 Facebook
friends and fans later, a quarter million hits on my own website, two sites on
Examiner.com, a CBS gig and I had become a writer. : )
But in the beginning I found out about websites chock full of
weather information and began interacting with weather experts all over the
world. One was a wonderful young student in another part of the northeast who
was so bright and knowledgeable that I thought she must have been a
professional meteorologist or an academic. Instead she was 15 years old and
headed to high school and uncertain of where her family was moving to—concerned
about a new town and a whole new experience. She and her little sisters had
been having a rough go of it for too long with instability in their lives and
my friend did amazing things in order to keep her siblings under her wing until
an adult family member and her boyfriend stepped up and provided a home,
stability and security to my friend and her beloved sisters.
This young woman had established several sites online,
including an awesome chat page which drew in experts including The Weather
Channel meteorologists sporting Ph.D.’s, on camera meteorologists, and just
plain weather fans. We set up Skype when Skyping was new because she wanted to
cover the weather live! She became my tech adviser online, helping me to set up
this blog page—she wanted to set up a blog, so we did it simultaneously late
one evening.
The summer of 2010 I chased a hurricane named Earl skirting
the northeast seaboard from my home in Central Ct to Rhode Island, knowing she’d
be a bit jealous since she loved such storms. She wasn’t at all, she was happy
for me. In fact, a system was moving through her area just as I was chasing
Earl. As I was driving over the Quinnipiac River Bridge in New Haven, I saw a
beautiful full arching double rainbow right over the bridge. As I drove further
east, weather conditions deteriorated to tropical downpours and winds, and I
enjoyed a wonderful chase and witnessed nature at her finest. When I arrived
home, I was surprised to learn that my friend had seen a rainbow at the same
time as I had. I was so touched that I wrote this poem about a storm that never
stood a chance of hitting the coast, but inspired by her and her love of nature
and all that she’d accomplished for herself and her family.
She turns 18 in 12 short days, and she is now more
interested in the theater than weather and has a genuine passion for actor,
director and committed Artistic Director of the Old Vic Theater in London,
Kevin Spacey.
In honor of her pending birthday I offer to my readers this reproduction
of her poem:
Ode to the Weather Explorer (A Poem)
No Igor for you and
me
Lisa-marie.
I guess we’ll just
have fun
Sitting outside in
the sun,
And just wait and
wait and wait
Until it’s very, very
late.
But this is the
tropical season my dear,
And I feel that the
time is near
When you have your
eye
And I
Have my eye
High, high, high
Way up in the sky
Looking right thru an
eye
Right in the middle
of the sky.
And who will it be?
Hurricane Who?
We’ve had a rainbow
We’ll have a
hurricane, too.
Me and Lisa-marie.
Steve Alexander 9/20/10
Hurricane Igor made landfall last night [2010] and this morning and is currently (12:47pm) a minor Category 1 – 75mph –
Hurricane that only the fishes will watch disintegrate and harm nobody any
more. The Weather Explorer helped keep YOU safe, once again!
Luvya Lisa-marie. Hope you like your
poem Ms. Pip and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! How do you make that? It’s an < and a 3?
Like this: <3 font="font">YES! I didit! TYTYTY! Ya just gotta love those Lisa-marie pink hearts. :)
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