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Yes the water’s rising. To some, it’s old hat.

“Is it raining?”

That is what most folks ask me when I get a phone call from someone living somewhat of a distance from where I live. Yesterday it was a guy in the District of Columbia. Today it was a man in Dallas.

If you have been watching the news in the United States during the past couple of weeks you will see that Texas has had some trophy raining.

It began with the flash flooding in the “Hill Country” of Central Texas, primarily around San Marcos, Wimberley and other areas between Austin or San Antonio. Hays County, where San Marcos and Wimberley is located, really took a pounding. Houston, another low-level city was flooded. Then it was Dallas’ turn. Two of the 10 largest cities in the U.S. waterlogged.

In actuality, the flooding has seemingly settled into the area where I live — in Southeast Texas — for more than a month.

Areas of the Sabine River, south of Deweyville in Newton County, has hung on the precipice of flooding for some time. The area I am referring to has an elevation that would struggle to make 10 feet. Many of the residents see this as just a part of living on the river.

Some times are worse than others though. Recently, the Sabine River Authority has had to let loose some of that mass of water that is kept by Toledo Bend Dam. The dam, like the river, separates the Texas-Louisiana border. The dam is located about 100 miles north of Deweyville and Indian Lake. Both the dam and “greater” Deweyville are located in Newton County. Across the river bank are Beauregard and Calcasieu parishes in Louisiana.

Although the river authority reports that it has “cut back” on water releases, the equivalent of 12,474,852 gallons of water per minute are flowing downstream to regulate the elevation of the largest man-made lake in the south and the fifth largest in the United States.

Local television reports that folks around the area below Deweyville are taking it all in stride. They’ve seen it all before. Some people think the people who live just off the river bank are a little on the insane side. But, be it ever so humble …

Hell, if the water keeps rising they’ll ride their roofs downstream if they have to do so. How high’s the water mama? Well, the present forecast calls for the river to crest tonight in Deweyville. But if it keeps raining, we’ll find out high the water really will be in south Newton County.

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It might snow. It might not. It might sleet. It might not. I don’t care. That’s for sure.

This will be as short as possible. I am on “hump day” of my annual leave — or vacation or however you would like to say it — and truly embracing some “do nothing” time.

There is a possibility of freezing precipitation tomorrow evening and going into Friday morning, according to today’s forecast (Jan. 22, 2014) by the National Weather Service office in Lake Charles, La. Yes, Lake Charles, the place with the high bridge over Interstate 10 and the gambling casino boats along the Calcasieu River. If my memory serves me, the Weather Service for the Southeast Texas was once at the Jack Brooks Regional Airport, what the airport was named back then I can’t remember. Then I think it was moved to Galveston. I don’t know, what I say might just be smoke coming from my ass.

The local NWS office “Discussion” about the area’s surface, marine and aviation weather is where one goes for a look at what the area forecasters are thinking about what is ahead. For our little spot during the winter weather slated for tomorrow, thus says NWS meteorologists:

USING A VARIETY OF PCPN TYPE FCSTING TECHNIQUES…AND LEANING QUITE HEAVILY ON THE TOP-DOWN METHOD…A MIX OF ALL MODES OF PCPN…LIQUID…FROZEN…AND FREEZING IS POSSIBLE FROM THU EVENING THROUGH THE DAY ON FRIDAY. THERE ARE STILL DIFFERENCES AMONG THE VARIOUS MODEL MODEL SOLUTIONS…BUT THERE ARE A COUPLE OF THINGS THAT STAND OUT AMONG THEM ALL…WHICH IS THAT LIFT AND MOISTURE WILL BE BETTER TO OUR WEST…AND THERE WILL BE A DRY LOW LEVEL LAYER TO CONTEND WITH. AT THIS TIME…GIVEN THE PROGGED QPF AMOUNTS…IT DOES NOT LOOK LIKE WE ARE IN DANGER OF MEETING OR EXCEEDING WINTER STORM WARNING CRITERIA…AND IN FACT…EVEN AN ADVISORY LOOKS UNLIKELY FOR MOST OF THE AREA. TEMPERATURES FRIDAY MORNING ARE FORECAST TO BE IN THE LOWER TO MID 20S…ONLY RISING INTO THE MID 30S DURING THE DAY.

Click on the above if you want definitions of the jargon. But this says that, for where I live in Jefferson County, coastal, Texas, it is doubtful any significant winter precipitation will occur. But for our subtropical area or the country it certainly should be colder than a well digger’s shovel.

Nevertheless, these weather service chaps leave themselves an out. They’ve prognosticated a 30 percent chance that sleet and/or snow may fall somewhere in the Lake Charles forecasting area. This ranges, for your information, from extreme western Hardin County, Texas, to Alexandria, La.,  to the west of New Orleans and south to the Gulf of Mexico. This is given with the proviso that weather does not generally obey imaginary boundaries such as county or parish lines.

And so too, the Texas Department of Public Safety will not be caught with its “Texas Tan” — replete with blue stripe with red piping — pants down by the release of a blanket travel advisory of this state. Texas, you might know, has  a length north and south by some 800 miles and nearly 775 miles east to west.

 “DPS is asking drivers to use extra caution on Texas roadways as an arctic front moves into areas of the state. Drivers may encounter freezing rain, sleet or snow is some areas, which could create extremely dangerous driving conditions,” said DPS Director Steven McCraw. “As always, Texans should continue to monitor the changing weather conditions in their area and prepare for any expected hazards.”

Further, said McCraw, several state agencies are standing by should their assistance be required including “Texas military forces.” Military forces? I knew DPS had its own swift boats, but military forces? Isn’t that a bit over the top? Couldn’t he have just said the National and State guard? Oh well.

Whether rain, sleet, snow, hell or high water, I plan for the remainder of my week off to mostly sit around or lie fast asleep catching up on a year or more of rest. Excited? Who’s excited?

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Those anger management lessons may just be paying off for Christie

For some reason I found myself singing the old Fats Domino tune this morning, what else, “The Fat Man.” Jeez Louise, that is one great song. It was released in 1950. that was five years before I was born. Then I saw the Fat Man himself about 18 years after I was born. I must have heard him play it there in the Texas Pelican Club in Vinton, La., because Fats played a little of everything that night.

“The Fat Man” was written by Antoine “Fats” Domino and frequent co-writing partner — also like Fats a New Orleans legend — Dave Bartholomew. Songs like that never seem to fall in the irrelevant pile. The music and words — “The girls, they all love me/’Cause I know my way around” — provide more meaning as you get older. It took me almost 40 years to figure out “Like a one-eyed jack peeping in the seafood store,” sad to say. If there is anything askew with Fats’ song is that line: “They call, they call me the fat man, ‘Cause I weigh two-hundred pounds.” Hell, I’d love to weigh 200 pounds. I don’t know if I’ll ever see 200 again, if so, I hope it is because of good dieting and working out. Harrumph!

Maybe the reason the song came to mind was because all I could find on the TV this morning before work was talk about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and “Bridgegate.” How freaking original. Watergate happened back in the early-to-mid 1970s. Can’t editors use a little part of their brain to come up with something much less hackneyed than that? I mean that is just sad.

The Washington political reporting crowd are just like starving alligators in the Southeast Texas bayous. They’re hungry and they’ll take a dead chicken or a live Cajun, “it don’t make no never mind.” The presidential election will eventually start. And you couldn’t have expected The Big Man Christie, just to set him apart from Fats, to fall on his sword. Oh and between Christie and Fats Domino, there is no comparison. Christie knows his way around a doughnut. Okay, I shouldn’t have said that, especially since I too am plump.

Christie fired two aides and apologized to Fort Lee, N.J. for blocking lanes on the George Washington Bridge. At least one woman died after she suffered a heart attack and her ambulance was caught up in the traffic snarl, according to one New Jersey EMS chief. If it can or could be proved Christie was involved in the petty scheme to create a traffic jam, then the potential Republican presidential candidate might just have screwed the pooch.

Some say Christie is a bully. He just says he is to the point. Is he petty enough to cause people to die from emergency services slow-downs? If so, he isn’t just a bully, he’s a freakin’ criminal.

Something tells me Christie wasn’t involved though. He may be a bully. He might just be a big ol’ Jersey loudmouth. Oh, and I don’t think he went off on any reporters, at least on camera this morning during his televised press conference. But I don’t think he’s stupid. That’s just me talking though.

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Hope … springs … and all that jazz

“Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering ‘it will be happier’…”
–Alfred Tennyson

 

Happy 2014. Seriously, I hope it is happy for anyone reading this and within that reader’s definition of happiness.

Wikipedia has a whole big shebang about happiness. How much of it is true, I couldn’t tell you. If you start to read the article you will find a big “smiley face” that could make you happy or scare you shitless or put your mind into some frame within those states or outside of them.

I have wandered this planet now for more than a half-century, and many of those years I sought happiness. Or so I thought that was what I sought. It turned out I was seeking something that had the opportunity to make me happy or just totally f**k up my life. Even if you do not know me I am sure an easy guess would reveal what it was I was seeking.

Was it love or was it money? It might have been. For unlike that song from the 1980s fad which caused me to no longer wear Western attire — think cowboy culture — about looking for love in all the wrong places, I felt like I was looking in all the right places. Only it is hard to delineate how many times I was actually looking for love.

Never have I made much money in my life. Unless it falls out of the sky, I hit the lottery or if the book I have been trying to write for some four years now is published and a phenomenal best seller, I will never be rich.

Love? Yeah, what of it? I have known love of many distinctions. Unless you have a solid idea as to just what is this idea known as romantic love, however, specifying when and where it was I fell across that state line makes for a difficult definition. The song by one of the weirdest duos ever — my hero Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias? — “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before” comes to mind in such a realm.

  “To all the girls I’ve loved before
Who traveled in and out my door
I’m glad they came along
I dedicate this song … “

Now I know that sounds like a lot. It sounds a bit caddish. Let’s just say it is a metaphor for a part of my past. That part about not making much money, definitely more solid.

Hope springs eternal. Maybe. Spring is the word there. Spring springs hope. It has long been said, as well, that in the spring a young man’s fancy to turns to love. I think that is true, yet I am no longer a young man. But that does not preclude my hope for a happy new year. Whatever happy means.

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At long last — a hangover cure that tells us about our drinking behavior

Ah, if we had only known this when we were younger …

All right now. Here are “scientific” answers about one of the most hideous of side (or is it after?) effects of drinking. Remember, the answer must be in the form of a question.

Okay, Alex, you old Canuck bastard, what is a hangover?

Ding, ding, ding. You are correct. Yes, well why wouldn’t I be?

A study released today by the manufacturers of “the only FDA-approved hangover cure” on the market reveals the top three hangover “culprits” are:

1. Tequila

2. Vodka

3. Red wine

Had I been asked I might have answered like this:

1. Tequila, Vodka and Red wine

2. Beer, Rum and Hot Damn!

3. Hot Damn, Fortified wine and any alcoholic beverage that comes in a 40-ounce can or bottle.

The study, which can be found online in the incredibly named “Intoxication Nation,” looks at the drinking behaviors of Americans over the age of 21. Actually,

” … a study of 5,249 Americans who drink alcohol and are over the age of 21. Margin of error for this study is 1.35% at a 95% confidence interval,” according to a PR Newswire release touting the study.

What is not for certain is whether those over 21 (from 21 to 110?) were hammered at the time they were being questioned. And yes, age makes a lot of difference. A very interesting result regarding age and hangovers was that “People in their 20s drink half as much as people in their 40s but get 3X the hangovers.” I suppose the older folks spend more time drinking from young adult-to-middle age so perhaps there is an immunity. What the hell do I know?

There are a number of interesting little tidbits although a survey published by a company that supposedly makes a hangover “cure,” well, you need to take it with a little salt before you drink that shot of Cuervo Gold or Sauza Blanco.

In alcohol studies we did during college — that’s right and one cohort owns his own distillery today — we found that moderation was great even though it sometimes was a bit overrated. And likewise it was interesting to determine that, as the song back in the mid-70s asked rhetorically: “Don’t The Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time.” In fact, an entire genre of C & W s**t-kickers adopted the theme of (over)indulging:

“The Power of Positive Drinking,” “A Headache Tomorrow (Or A Heartache Today,)” “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here And Drink.” “Yesterday’s Wine,” etc.

Perhaps if this hangover cure was around in my younger days, I might just have tried it. There is one little problem, however. The name. It’s called “Blowfish for Hangovers.” Blowfish are fish that get all puffed up and are toxic, as in deadly toxic. This is no matter that Hootie and the Blowfish were rather benign.

Maybe Blowfish for Hangovers is the miracle cure we all sought in our college days. Of course, in those days, one might just hop up and manage four or five cups more of Busch if the keg was still cold and had yet to float. It may not have been the best hangover cure but it sure as shootin’ beat yesterday’s wine — especially if yesterday’s wine was in a plastic cup with a half-smoked Kool Filter sailing around in it.