Ponderings and Musings

It’s been a month since my 2023 storm chasing trip on the Great Plains. I’ve been thinking about this trip since returning home nearly a month ago. I don’t like to use the word “disappointed” because I believe there’s always something we can find to avert the feeling of “disappointment”, but overall I was hoping to see more in the way of storms this year.

Spending a week on the Great Plains, where I know absolutely no one, is something I enjoy. I really like being anonymous and watching people, especially from a far. Grandpa City was known to enjoy people watching as well, and he could sit on a bench and watch the world go by and be quite content. This type of activityI gives me much time to think and to clear my head and to get the world around me back into perspective. As I drove a couple of thousand miles around the (mostly) flat terrain, I realized that I’m having a little bit of a mid-life crisis (again?). I keep asking myself, “Is this it?”. Maybe I’m looking for magic. Maybe I hyped up the trip a little bit too much in my head as I was making plans and watching weather patterns, and thinking of small towns being quaint.

I feel like I may have done a little too much driving on this trip, and that was mainly because the weather was a mess. The high pressure ridge that moved in right before I left pushed any chance of storms (which were nominal at best) to parts scattered all over the region. One day I’m in Northeast Texas, the next day I need to hustle to Northeast Oklahoma, and then the next day I had to get myself to Southwest Kansas.

I’ll be approaching the next trip a bit differently: I’m going to narrow the confines of my “chase area” a little bit and maybe enjoy the downtime a bit more. I think I’m also going to ask my husband to meet me, maybe for the ride home or something.

I did find this video I took in the middle of the night, when the storms finally arrived, way behind forecast, in Liberal, Kansas.

The bonks of the ice balls didn’t hurt the rental car at all. I found this storm enjoyable.

These two are always attentive or at least nearby when a meal is being consumed. Today they kicked adorable levels up a notch.

Ordering things online is convenient. While I tend to look away from Amazon for my purchases, in the interest of supporting smaller companies and entrepreneurial folks looking to make their place in the world, there are times when I find this practice irksome: when folks send two, three, four or more emails a day after my purchase has been signed, sealed, delivered.

I recently bought an item from a small company here in the southwest. I’m quite pleased with the product but when I look at it now all I can think of is the constant barrage of email from this company, trying to convince me to buy something, anything, something, anything again right now.

Of course, in an interest of escaping the mountain of email from this vendor I go to Facebook or something (I know, I shouldn’t do that) where I’m assaulted with ads for the product I just bought, from the company I just signed, sealed, and delivered my transaction with.

I’m trying to cuss less so I won’t type the words that are on my mind around the subject.

I do know I won’t buy from this small company again and I’ll just pay a few pennies less and go the Amazon approach. ‘Tis quite sad, really, but when I’m irked, I’m irked.

I told my husband I was going out for a bit. “Please wash the car if you have the chance.”

It’s the first thing I did. Yay for Mister Car Wash and our subscription! Just drive through the Members Only lane, follow the instructions of the nice attendant and viola, clean car.

I decided to go to the local mall. Park Place is in pretty good shape, despite Macy’s leaving during the pandemic. I enjoy the Nordstroms, the mall is well populated, and the air conditioning works brilliantly. Air conditioning is important when it’s 100F outside.

I found myself in the mood for Chinese food, so I stopped by for a fairly healthy selection from the Panda Express in the food court. Afterwards I did some laps around the mall to get some steps in and then I went to one of those mall massage places. Since there’s big windows looking in I don’t have to worry about something weird going on, so I opted for a 45 minute rubdown.

I was thrown around, prodded, plodded, punched, kneaded, and elbowed the entire time. See? Nothing weird going on and I feel wonderful.

I then opted to do a bunch of laps around the mall again before heading out and parking at our favorite Starbucks. I brought my older laptop along because it hadn’t had exercise in a while and I’m feeling extra geeky today. Someone just said, “YES” to me when they spotted my “Janeway For President” sticker.

I’ve been assigned the task of picking up coat hangers on the way home. I’m not gay enough to know whether I’m suppose to get metal, wood, or plastic coat hangers so I’ll just pick up ones that look like a good deal and call it a day.

Wish me luck.

Life could be harder. I’m happy it’s not.

When I was a lad in elementary school Grandpa City retired from his job at the country club. Retirement was apparently an exciting thing that happened when one got older and he seemed happy to be retiring. At least that’s how I remember things.

After he retired we spent a few days visiting and I was curious as to why he and Grandma were still getting up quite early? If they didn’t have to go to work, why not get a few extra winks?

Now that I’m in my middle 50s, I’ve discovered the reason: even me, one of the strongest “not a morning person” type of people around, now gets up at sunrise and actually feels awake, alert, and productive in the early morning. Of course, Grandma and Grandpa City didn’t have a cat making louder and louder demands at the crack of dawn like we occasionally do here in the desert, but I’m finding my natural wake up time seems to be following the patterns of the sun a bit. Whether I’m up late or not the night before, I’m waking up with the sunrise.

I’m ready to retire.

I grew up in the Lake Ontario Snow Belt outside of a village of approximately 2,500 people. While we didn’t live on the “other side of the tracks”, we lived about four miles from the quaint little downtown area. A mile in the other direction brought us to a very small hamlet with less than a dozen businesses. The former was described as “going downtown”, the other was “going uptown”.

I have fond memories of shopping “downtown”. Some of my earliest memories are of a drug store that still had a soda fountain and I remember visiting with my mom and godmother after going to the nearby “yarn shop”. There was a Sears catalog store, a department store, a men’s clothing store, a ladies’ dress shop, and a whole bunch of small, locally owned businesses. I can still hear creaking floors and warm smiles as we walked in.

The last time I drove through “downtown” there wasn’t much in the way of commerce. There were a couple of service based businesses, a hair salon, a Chinese restaurant, and several of the storefronts had been combined to form a tavern that had apparently closed during the pandemic. The building that housed Western Auto and a grocery store was removed for a bank drive thru.

We often look back at our childhood and focus on the fond memories and I can’t help but smile when I think back to the excitement of going from store to store while “downtown”. Businesses began leaving the shopping district when the department store was built out by the Interstate. That spurred fast food restaurants and the relocation of some of the small chain stores from the downtown area out to the new commercial area.

As a guy in my mid 50s with a good memory, I’m happy to have experienced this earlier version of small town shopping districts. The world seemed bigger while the community seemed closer. There seemed to be more smiles on faces. In the 80s it was the malls and in the 00s it was about the online shopping experience.

When I go on my storm chasing trips I often drive through “Business Districts” (as guided from the roadway designed to bypass the original town), hoping to see glimmers of what I once knew. Once in a while I find it; this year it was Garden City and Independence, both in Kansas. Last year it was Gothenburg, Nebraska. Smiling faces, fairly business shopping districts, pleasantness.

Sometimes I wonder if moving to online shopping is really progress.

One of the perks of working from home is that it’s fairly easy to take a nap during a lunch break. I do this quite often. It doesn’t work out for me as well as it used to. Lately I’ve been feeling groggy after a nap. I used to be able to Power Nap.

I set a timer for 20 minutes. I immediately fall asleep and generally wake up with six minutes left on the timer. I feel like I’ve slept at least three hours, I can usually remember a dream, and I feel refreshed. If I get up then, I’m fine. It’s the “oh I have six more minutes” and I shut my eyes when things go sideways.

So starting tomorrow I’m going to try to not nap at all and get my body back on track. Getting old is interesting.

It’s been one week since my stomach bug and the extended downtime last weekend. I have surprisingly been able to keep the weight off for that week and am feeling better for it.

The biggest change in this whole thing is I gave up drinking Diet Coke or Coke Zero. I’ve also ramped back my caffeine intake; cutting my coffee and iced tea consumption in half. This has helped my sleep experience quite a bit.

As I navigate my way through middle aged life, I have to remember that my body isn’t what it used to be and it’s not what it’s going to be. Paying a little more respect to this vessel has helped me have a productive week and a better outlook on life in general.

I like it when folks stop by the office to say hello.