After the Storm

Greetings from storm-ravaged Ottawa, Ontario, friends. So I was sitting here Saturday afternoon editing photos of the tulips in my garden when I thought, “Yikes, it’s getting really dark out there. Looks like a storm. Better go out and clip the last remaining tulips before they get smashed to crap.” Then while I was outside clipping tulips I thought, “Yikes, it’s getting really dark out here. There is definitely going to be a storm. Better get inside before you get smashed to crap.” Less than five minutes later, just as I was putting the finishing touches on my rescue tulip bouquets, a wildly destructive storm front called a derecho rolled over Ottawa, and smashed the crap out of my city.

Years ago in Orlando, Florida, at the end of a long, stormy day of Disney-ing, Mr. Finger Candy and I were caught in a downburst as we tried to navigate the parking lot in front of our resort. As the water rose above my ankles, the sheeting rain and gale force winds drove me into a nearby rental compact, and I briefly wondered if we were both going to go off sailing to the Land of Oz. Until this weekend’s homegrown derecho, that storm was my personal litmus test for a frightening meteorological event. Saturday’s storm was so much worse.

Nearly 72 hours after 120 km/hour winds rocked the city, there are still over 70,000 homes and businesses without power. Gas stations have run out of fuel, grocery stores have run out of food, and restaurants, in need of both, have simply shut their doors. From pretty well one end of the city clear on out to the other, there are snapped, toppled and uprooted trees, smashed fences, and collapsed structures. A major retail corridor, Merivale Road – if the name sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the area that was nearly leveled by a gas explosion some months back – is a tangled snarl of downed power lines. The sound of gas-powered chainsaws and generators is constant.

Knock on every bit of wood that was littering my front lawn before I went out today and picked it all up, but we came through the storm alright. I won’t comment on our deer-in-the-headlights reaction to the storm itself (not everyday a tornado rips through the Ottawa Valley; we were gobsmacked by the storm’s utter fury, such that we couldn’t tear ourselves away from the windows) but we didn’t lose power. In the immediate aftermath, it looked like a dump truck full of silty, leafy water had been hurled at our house, but praise the gods, we suffered no material damage to our home or property.

The same can’t be said for our immediate neighbours, whose 20-foot fir, leaning somewhat towards the street, was uprooted and tossed casually in the completely opposite direction (towards the neighbours who are thankfully not us.) The mere presence of this felled behemoth, stretched across two driveways and most of a lawn, has attracted a near-constant parade of gawkers and rubberneckers. I’m sad; it maybe wasn’t the most attractive tree, but it was old and living and added to the shade canopy on the street, and was undoubtedly a better steward of this earth than all of us utterly hellbent on destroying it (climate change is a myth/sarcasm.)

And so cleanup begins. Yesterday Mr. Finger Candy and I went out and filled two leaf bags with the sticks, branches and whole tree limbs that were littering the front and back yards. I swept down the front of the house and removed all the bits of stuck-on leaves and mulch spackled to the windows, doors and siding. I filled half a leaf bag with the fluffy floral remnants of our chestnut tree’s white blossoms, which carpeted the front lawn and driveway. I vowed to actually go “down cellar” the next time there’s one of these furious storms, instead of gawping out the window like an idiot extra in a climate disaster movie (“Mr. The Rock, sir? Is the water line supposed to be up to the 17th floor of this building?”)

And I’m trying not to be immensely bitter about the fact that for the past two weeks, I’ve spent an incredible amount of time and money re-landscaping our property. For a solid week and a half, Mr. Finger Candy and I began every day with a trip to Home Depot for garden soil, 10 bags at a time. We’d then come home, unload our bounty, and I’d go out to the yard to “rebuild” the beds I’ve spent the past two seasons denuding. Lather, rinse, repeat.

When I was out clipping my tulips on Saturday afternoon, everything looked spectacular, fresh and clean and level! No more blundering into ankle-twister holes or tripping over exposed roots! Then we all got derecho’d, and nothing looks very spectacular any more. Most of the dirt I laid down seems to have disappeared, as if the force of the storm simply vaporized it. I’m trying to maintain my chill about the situation, given what a non this is in the greater scheme of post-storm things, but dang, the pointlessness stings. Really knocked me down a peg or two, and believe me, these days, the lower rungs on the ladder have nearly disappeared; the ground is right. friggin’. there.

But we have power. And food. We are safe, our cats are safe and our families are safe. There are no downed hydro poles or gargantuan trees laying across our property. We came out of this one a little battered, but mostly okay. I hope you did, too.

Rainy Day Rainbows

Only type of day we’ve been having lately, actually.  It has rained SO MUCH this summer, and it’s also been humid as crap.  There was also some major springtime flooding this year.  I’d say we are positively wrung with water about these parts.  Hmm, that sounded a lot ickier than I had intended.  Meteorlogical water, just to clarify. 😉

Anyhow, here’s some rainbow nail art, set on a slant!  And I hope the end of your weekends, friends, feature more rainbows than rain.

Frozen Fingertips

Still frosty, still frozen, only now we Canadians have a lot of American company – welcome to continuous sub-zeros, my southern friends.  Ain’t she glorious?  I seriously haven’t been warm in weeks.  I just live in little furry boot slippers and every layer I can get my frostbitten hands on.  Looking forward to enjoying some sunnier Florida temps soon.

Until then, another icy-looking mani featuring ILNP’s silver holo, Mega, under a frosted dusting of Enchanted Polish’s Freeze Machine.  Brrrr…

Frosty Freeze

That’s me!  Or rather, I’m frosty and freezing.  To paraphrase Captain Raymond Holt of Brooklyn 9-9, where I live (Eastern Ontario, Canada) it is colder than Cocytus, the frozen lake of Hell.  And has been that way – resolutely, aggravatingly so – all. week. long.  We’re talking temps that dip into the mid-20s (NEGATIVE 20 DEGREES) but owing to BS metrics like windchill, actually feel like they’re in the -30s.  I haven’t been warm all week.

Anyhow, all that to explain how these nails, which started out in a tropical place, wound up looking more like frosted snowflakes.  Because everything in my life is frosted in snowflakes these days, so why not also my manicures?!  Also because the glittery purple polish I chose, a nameless stocking stuffer I received last year, is itself just frosty enough to make what started out life as floral fronds into ice cold lace daggers.  Or sorry, as you may know it, snow.  Because there’s also been a ton of that this week as well, inexplicably – it’s really not supposed to snow when it gets this cold, but somehow, it’s managed BOTH at the same time!  As have I with these nails. 😉

Sunset Snowflakes

I think this could be a refrain sung right ’round the world these days, but here in the Ottawa Valley, we have been experiencing some very odd weather as of late.  Way early snow (we always get it, but it rarely sticks this fast), sub-sub-freezing temps and mini blizzards alongside the winter’s setting sun.  So inspired was I by this latter event (pretty for the grand total of about 30 seconds before the endless frozen precipitation obliterated the sunset’s gorgeous pastel hues) I did some nails!  Anything to cheer m’self up weather-wise, ’cause it’s only November, and we Canadians in this for the long haul.

Fall Fun Fridays: The Failing Grade Edition

Good morning, friends, and welcome to another beautiful autumn Friday!  As of late, the weather around my neck of the global woods has been quite uneven – one moment it’s so cold, we’re all breaking out our toques and parkas, and the next it’s so dank and humid, we’re firing up the air conditioners for one last summery go-round.  But there’s only one way this all ends, and that’s with snow.  I suppose that’ll be here soon enough.

So being the end of the work week and all, it’s time for another edition of Fall Fun Fridays, the casual little blogging challenge I’ve been, let’s face it, whiffing hardcore with my friends Jay of The Scented Library and Julie of The Redolent Mermaid, who are decidedly not whiffing it.  Excuses, excuses, but my Fall has been rather disrupted by ongoing renovations to our apartment.  They’re not going super well, I keep injuring myself (I’m looking down at a throbbing cut on my thumb right now for which I probably should have sought stitches) and I haven’t been able to put out any of my usual decorations, including my beloved Halloween town.  Here, let’s take a peek at it from two seasons ago; that’ll make me feel peppier.

Anyhow, all that to say I haven’t exactly been feeling the Fall this year, as the kids might say.  Looks like it’ll take another emergency infusion of Disney’s absolutely bonkers approach to the season to set things right – fortunate, since we’ll be back in about two weeks’ time. 🙂

This week’s prompt contemplated hands-on activities – your favourite Fall recipe, craft or some other DIY-able.  I’m actually right in the midst of putting together some fortifying chicken stew for dinner tonight with my parents – that seems like a very autumn dish.  But it won’t be ready for – *checks time* – oh, another five or so hours!  So until the timer goes off, I’d kindly direct you on over to my friends’ blogs, where they’re sure to have pulled out all the seasonal stops.  Happy weekend, friends; hope you get a few moments to get out there and enjoy all it has to offer.

Woefully Unprepared

That was my husband and I this weekend after back-to-back tornadoes struck our hometown of Ottawa, Ontario on Friday evening.  The storms – a rare, although not totally unheard of occurrence – tore through the city in a matter of minutes, leaving utter destruction in their wake – flattened homes, uprooted trees and a completely decimated power station, which knocked out electricity to nearly 180,000 homes and businesses, ours included.

In the eerily still moments that followed the lights going out, it began to dawn on us that we were not in the best of positions to ride out anything longer than half a day’s power outage.  In an effort to curb mindless munching, we keep precious little “emergency” food in the house – crackers, granola bars – or even easy to prepare things like salad and sandwich fixings.  So we had no food, and a rapidly thawing freezer full of things that could only be heated up.  We also live in a condo apartment, so we have no barbecue, gas stove or hot water heater.  Also a multi-storey walk down to and then back up from the garage in order to check the news on AM radio because neither one of us carries a data plan on our phones, choosing instead to tap our home or public wifi, which is great practice in terms of saving money and curbing poor phone habits, but terrible in the event of an actual emergency, because when the power goes out, so too does the wifi.

On Saturday evening we braved the roads – signal lights out, all intersections down to the mostly respected honour system – and went over to check on my parents, who were having a veritable blackout party when we straggled in, weak from a diet consisting of nothing but dry Mini Wheats straight from the box.  Bustling about their gas fireplace-warmed kitchen in a cozy-looking jewel toned robe, my mother laid out their bounty of “eat this now”s, expressing concern that it wasn’t much (my mom’s definition of “not much” being wildly skewed, of course; their granite-topped kitchen island was crammed with a tantalizing assortment of salads, deli sandwiches, dips, heaping bowls of leftovers and half a chocolate cake!  I nearly burst into tears, but crying would have gotten in the way of all the eating; we fell on this unexpected feast with gratitude.  My parents are pretty awesome.

We rode out the remainder of the weekend in our apartment doing what we did all weekend long – cramming as much reading as we could into the daylight hours before passing out from boredom about two hours after sundown.  When the power came back on, I nearly cried, again.  It was a bit of an emotional weekend.  Having the power off was its own challenge, sure, but it was the weekend-long information vacuum we were plunged into that made the whole situation that much worse – I was utterly furious that for all our expensive devices we have jacked up in our faces at all hours of the day, when it really comes down to it, we’re still just sitting in the dark, clueless.

And the silence – it was deafening.  I never realized before how much white noise I like to have in my life.  I have slept with a full box fan bearing down on me virtually every night of my life.  I score nearly everything I do – cooking, cleaning, blogging, driving, personal care, working out, travel, socializing – to a vast assortment of playlists and favourite music.  I work on an asskicker of an Alienware gaming computer that pumps out a low, never-ending hum.  I nearly always have a movie or a show queued up on our TV; extra white noise points if it’s one I’ve watched hundreds of times before (jest not, I’ve definitely seen Beetlejuice and The Lost Boys more than 250 times each.)  At one point Saturday night as I lay in bed struggling to fall asleep to the deafening din of nothingness, I thought, “Is this what Simon and Garfunkel were singing about in Sound of Silence?”

In our defence, I will say we weren’t completely lost souls in all of this.  We actually had a very productive weekend – my husband, who fought off an emerging cold all last week, finally gave in to the germs and allowed himself to just rest.  I used the downtime to finish one book, start another (on the Wall Street implosion of 2008, for pity’s sake!) and take up the entirety of our second bedroom floor.  And last night, in something of a stroke of waste-not, want-not brilliance, I cannibalized three different Hello Fresh entrees that I was utterly crushed at the thought of having to dispose of, cobbling together a rather posh and large feast of Tex Mex-inspired salad and balsamic-drizzled caprese salad with naan bread, by candlelight.

The power came back on about 10:30 Sunday evening, and we were beyond thankful for it.  Then we started to get a picture of the true destruction to our city, of which we were mostly spared.  Aggravated and inconvenienced for two and a half days, yes, and I had to throw out virtually all of the contents of our refrigerator (once again, I nearly cried; I absolutely loathe wasting food) but thankfully spared the indignities of so many of our neighbours – leveled homes, flattened cars, uprooted trees and lives.

But this entire incident has taught us a few crucial lessons.  First, Mother Nature hates us, and she has good reason to.  Climate change exists; you simply can’t deny the negative impact our wildly wasteful lives have on the environment.  And if you do, boy howdy, do I have a one-way ticket to Mars for you right here, my friend.  But secondly, and most important to our immediate lives, we discovered, as I stated off the top, that we are wildly unprepared for any emergency situation, big or small.  So we’re formulating a more responsible plan for next time, because there will be a next time, because see above, re: climate change.  And also something about history something-something and being doomed to repeat it.  Unless we learn our lessons, to close off this circular argument.

And now we rebuild and heal up and try to return to something approaching normal.  Get better soon, Ottawa.

50 Shades of Nay

So the weather has returned to its previous state of icy terribleness and I needed some pretty nails to remind me that one day this will all end.  I mean, not ALL of it in that sense – too bleak!  Just the weather.  The crap weather can totally end, right now.  Bring on the spring.  Until then, nail polish that looks like bubblegum ice cream, Delush Polish’s 50 Shades of Yay.  Or just bubblegum straight up trapped in ice.  Hey, welcome to the club, bubblegum – we’ve got (warm) jackets.

Being of a slightly superstitious mindset, I believe that Mr. Finger Candy and I may have inadvertently cursed us all to this extended bout of wintertime crappiness – we were JUST remarking the other day (a bit smugly, I might add) that the handful of days we spent down in balmy Florida over the Christmas holidays seemed to make all the difference in our tolerance of the rest of the winter.  The whole snowbird thing has been making a lot of sense lately.

But then winter had to come roaring back for a completely unappreciated second act, and it’s definitely not all our fault, but maybe we jinxed ourselves a little?  Can’t ever get too cocky about the weather when you’re a Canadian.  Or a climate change denier.  And good heavens, what if you’re BOTH?!  No amount of pretty nail polish in the world is gonna fix that.  Anyhow, hunker down, friends, this too shall end.

More Power to the Flower

Because those April showers have to pay off somehow, right?  And I’m pretty sure the record flooding my city has seen over the past week (in a condo apartment on high ground, I am thankfully immune) is not what that tired old expression originally contemplated.  Strength to my less fortunate neighbours, with the vehement hope that the waters finally begin to recede.  Until then, more flowers, fewer showers.

Delicate Drifts

It might be a little early in the cold weather season for my mitts to be looking quite so chapped, but the condition of my hands, as well as the inspiration for these nails, is perfectly in keeping with the crazy (and crazy cold) weather we’ve had lately.  Drifting snow, freezing rain, bitterly cold temperatures, maybe a bit of hail – we’ve had it all, and somehow all at once. It’s a horrible weather miracle!

I think this manicure is really pretty, particularly the flakes on my index and pinkie fingers, which I created using the pond manicure technique, which is when you free-hand a nail art design between layers of a super sheer jelly polish.  It a cool technique that makes everything look soft and diffuse, perfect for designs of fluffy, sparkly snow gently piling up on the windowsill.