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Irma’s Silver Lining
Fled the Keys to Orlando to ride out Irma. As I mentioned in a previous post, the staff at this place is outstanding. But. Still stuck in the hotel and its grounds. Still unable to travel. Ninety percent of my time spent in two adjoining rooms with the family and the dogs. Love ’em all dearly. Still, the walls were closing in.
One can only do so much in the gym. The mediocrity of this gym was adjudged due to the fact that while it had a laudable amount of floor space, it had little/no useful equipment. Lots of room for Combat Conditioning and other body weight exercises. Lots of room for jumping rope.
You can only do so many push-ups a day (said no Drill Sergeant ever).
So as an excuse to get out of the room, I took up smoking. That’s not the silver lining (okay — it was a silver lining. Ain’t gonna lie, there was a certain pleasure in chuffing down the unfiltered Camels. And, yes, I will quit again ‘pon our return to Casa de Mongo). It was outside, smoking and drinking, that I got to know the boys. Tradesmen that flocked to Orlando to be centrally located so that immediately after the storm, they were positioned to get where the need was greatest and get to working. There were linemen, roofers, power grid assessors, heavy equipment operators. All guys that shower after work, not before it.
This isn’t a dig at folk that are educated or white collar. I’m educated and white collared (okay, maybe polo-shirt collared; I’m not getting paid enough to wear a tie more than twice a year). I hope as life grinds on to get more educated and white collared-er. But this is a hat tip to the men who get stuff done. They were stacked up and ready to go. Cheerful, optimistic hell-raisers on a mission that would give them a mark on the good side of the ledger.
Some were educated. I talked to more than a couple of engineers. One guy was a former Army officer who was commissioned into the Engineer branch. Oh, and he was a native Panamanian who’d earned his commission and served in the USA specifically to get his citizenship. His compañeros were guys whose surnames started with Fitz-, Mc, and Mac. The comments, jibes, and insults that flew amongst them would’ve made a Social Justice Warrior spontaneously combust (oh, and the little brown guy more than held his own).
And that’s the silver lining. There was no rancor, no one looking to take offense — plenty looking to give it, but no one had the desire or inclination to take the bait. All my conservative news feeds — and I admit, I realize I’ve inadvertently built a bubble — make me despair. SJWs, micro-aggressions, lack of any sense of history or the liberalism that built the greatest nation in history all can make me despair and think that we’re doomed. This week was a good shot in the arm.
Whatever media exposure the SJWs at the University of Green Birkenstocks or the snowflakes at Pantytwist U. get and exploit, guys like the ones I’ve spent the last week with are out there.
And they’re out there to get it done.
Anybody got a light?
Published in General
Great-grandpa did that. In the Navy, though. Singed Alfonzo XIII’s beard for him. Well, not really, since Alfie was only twelve years old. Singed his mom the Queen Regent’s beard, then.
Silver Lining for us: you are a member of Ricochet! We are blessed to have you, Boss. Thanks for the on-the-ground reporting from Hurricaneville.
Hack, cough, cough, cough….. No, not your smoke. Just me getting the Montana smoke out of my lungs.
You goin’ make me blush, ma’am.
My paternal grandfather earned his citizenship serving in the 32nd Infantry Division during WWI. Earned a Purple Heart. Used to show us kids the piece of shrapnel still in his skull when when we grandkids were in our single digits in age.
Although I have worked with my brain most of my life (engineer, author, and technical writer) there are no folks I appreciate more than folks who work with their hands, especially the folks who make things. There are all sorts of smarts, and the ability to run a lathe to 0.00001 inch accuracy is just as impressive as anything else I know of. To say nothing of the guy who can fix my a/c.
Seawriter
God bless’m and bless you too. @rushbabe49 got to it before me – but she nailed it.
Since we’ve followed your journey out of the Keys last week, I think I speak for all of us in hoping and praying that you still have a home left when you return. Have you heard from anyone down there about your property?
Friends and neighbors have said that the house is good, some of our trees are down, and the fence is gone. From the outside, the house looks like it maintained integrity. We’ll see.
We were going to head back no matter what tomorrow. Those same friends and neighbors, though, state that we’ve no power, no cell coverage, and only 2 hours of (non-potable) water per day. Recovery teams are working around the clock, so we’ll get an intell update in the morning and then decide whether to push through tomorrow or stay here one more night and let the situation settle (as much as it can in 24 hours).
The lovely and talented Mrs. Mongo has stipulated that it may make sense for me to push south tomorrow with the dogs, and then she push south tomorrow with the girls. Don’t think that’ll work, though; I’ve got issues with not being within one car-length from her vehicle if, for whatever reason, things go all “road warrior.”
Some of my best memories as a kid was helping my dad build things. Love a man that wears Eau de Pine
I think you saw the real America brother not the mambi pambi domain (you stole “pantywaist) created and sustained by left wing, academia, and MSM (I know I repeat myself, I know I repeat myself…) – and it’s a good sight to see I imagine for your sore eyes – I know it’s good for my ears. Perhaps the driving plan would work if you & Mrs M switched passengers. I gotta believe most would leave her alone and even give extra-wide margin upon seeing Mr. Zeus.
Agreed. Never leave your wingman. ( or something like that ). Anyway, If you go home first you will only end up throwing out something you shouldn’t have and you’ll hear about it for the next 50 years.
Fingers crossed for your house.
No water, no AC, no cell service? I dunno, Boss. Sounds like a good weekend to spend in Disney.
Are they gouging you for the accommodations? Gas? Food? Wait… it’s Orlando. What am I saying??
Most definitely!! You take the girls and give her Zeus is most logical as bad guys hate big dogs (at least on tv).
You always do. Oh, wait: you always do.
True, but there are non-tactical conundrums with that. I can’t imagine her pulling into a rest station, taking him for a PB, and him seeing a shih-tzu. I can pick him up and throw him down (knee on stomach/ribcage) and admonish, “Hey, little dog lives matter!” Her, not so much. He is loving but wilful, especially when it comes to little dogs. Also, she’s the family mama, don’t want to think he’s got to be the alpha ’cause I’m not there.
Lot’s of variables, hermano, but in uncertain situations, I’m the only one that can handle him with certainty.
Or it could be an opportunity. Honey, I didn’t throw that out! You must’ve misplaced it!
Eh. You’re right @ekosj. I’ve visions of being too clever by half.
This too will pass Boss. Think of the stories you will have to tell. Hope all is well at Bossienda.
My Dad worked as a machinist for over 50 years; he refused to retire, and at age 70 he had a massive heart attack on the shop floor. Thanks to a co worker who knew CPR, he survived; his boss came to visit him in the hospital to gently inform him that-especially after basically dying at work-he could no longer work. At least not at the shop, but they did give him a lathe, which he put in the garage and he continued to work part time from home. He was so thrilled to have that lathe, and he used it a lot, but then the company he worked for stopped doing construction and repairs (I think) and started just selling for other people (I think). If it weren’t for that, he would probably still be using it. He is 93. :)
Glad to hear you’re safe and sound after the storm, and prayers that your house is in good shape too.
Those utility guys bust their tails every time there’s a storm, and I’m thrilled that we get to help ’em out in our own small way (their trucks are built by my customers).
Think of the entertainment value alone to these guys. They’re owed….
Actually, I posted earlier: through some very technical, corporate, uh, by-laws kind of way, I got a rate. I’m not thrilled at the money I’m spending on Hurricane Avoidance Ops, but I’m remunerating all the outstanding people we’ve encountered who’ve provided goods and services at a rate we both find reasonable. No gouge experience. In fact, in many of the local places we’ve gone to for meals, employees of the establishment, on hearing we’re from the Keys, have applied their own employee discounts to our tab. Truly awesome.
Man alive, the mental image I have of that. Cracked Me up.
Sometimes little dogs go after big dogs and start all the trouble. My toy poodle went after a doberman once, and as I snatched him into the air out of the doberman’s reach, informed him he was about to be made into a Hors d’oeuvre.
I also had a great Dane, once. totally useless as a guard dog, but would step over the fence to visit the neighbor’s chickens, managed to kill 27 fryers one day by just stepping on them trying to play.
Oh, this made me laugh. I’ll have to share that with my dad.
It’s been about 32 years since he allegedly tossed an “heirloom” of my mother’s while she was away. It just happened to come up (again) on a recent visit of mine. I see no sign of her forgetting it any time soon.
Thanks for the update, @bossmongo. So glad you and yours are doing well. Safe travels.
HooWah! And Panda Hugs, Boss! Btw, making friends with the 1-lb.-each wristlets this week: RAH! (Thought of you…).
That’s my concern, Kay. Zeus has been attacked by little dogs (for inscrutable little dog reasons) so many times, he doesn’t wait around anymore, but just goes first. He’s a big boy, I’m the only person in the family that can dissuade him.
He has no problem with any people, whatsoever. Why, there must’ve been 12-15 conclaves of amazing European stewardesses here that see him and immediately call him over. Strangely, while I can pick him up and throw him down when he wants to savage a shi-tzu, I’m powerless to stop him when he heads for a group of European stewardesses for some fawning and petting. He must have a “stewardess strength mode.” Guess I’ve got to keep working out.
I feel for him. But tossing the 153-volume collection of Coastal Living that resides in our bathroom in a magazine rack that I foolishly provided…
Water damage, baby. Must’ve been water damage…
My in-laws have a Havanese, and she is a moron. Leaves the other little dogs alone, but has to pick fights with all the big dogs, or buses, deer, horses, geese, etc. Has lint for brains.
This needs to go to the Main Feed immediately!
A tornado hit in Tulsa years ago when my grandfather was at work and my grandmother at home alone with two toddlers — raging winds, golf-ball sized hail, the works. When he was finally able to get home, Papa was relieved to find his family unharmed and the house completely undamaged . . . except for two giant urns on the porch. Urns that had come affixed to the place and which my grandmother had always hated. The urns were demolished — not damaged, demolished.
“Um, Beverly? How did this . . . ?”
“Hail.”
“So the hail missed . . . everything else except the urns.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then.”
Papa remained convinced until the day he died that his beloved had just seized the opportunity to take out the eyesores with a hammer.
Agreed. I have enormous respect for people with “real world” skills. They enable me to do this silly work that I do – put music notes on paper for people to sing and play.
But I am also totally aware that, unless I develop some bad-ass sharpshooting skills, in the coming zombie apocalypse I will be the first guy to be shoved outside the wall when rations start getting scarce.
Well, my poodle didn’t go that far, but he did catch a motorcycle once. Fortunately it didn’t kill him but he never went after another.