Category: Weather

The Legend Of Fluffy The Manx Cat

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date December 24, 2020

Merry Christmas Eve to all of my friends all around the world. I wish you God’s abundant love and everlasting peace on this day and on every day.

Today I’m bringing back a Christmas classic that’s been featured on my blog before in various forms. It’s the story of the greatest Christmas gift ever – the arrival of a cat.

It started out as a morning like any other, but just a few hours later it would become a morning that forever changed the lives of me and my little brother, and our Mom and Dad.

Exactly 37 years ago yesterday morning on Friday December 23RD 1983 me (age 16½) and my little brother (age 8½) looked out our living room window at the snow and the ice on the ground of our backyard. It was a bitter cold morning in McLean Virginia 2 days before Christmas, and we were happy to be warm and comfortable inside.

But there was a creature stirring outside that was not warm and comfortable. It was a lonely young cat with no tail that was wandering around aimlessly on our ice-covered backyard patio deck, and it was shivering in misery. Me and my brother decided rather quickly that it did not belong in the harsh elements of the outside at that moment, so we opened the door and she walked right in to our more sheltered screened-in ‘Florida Room’.

We gave her some milk to drink. She loved us for it. We gave her some love. We heard a strange sound coming from her that we hadn’t heard before. It was the friendly and inviting sound of her purring. We let her in to our warm and comfortable home. She never looked back. In fact she refused to leave after that. We pretty much named her ‘Fluffy’ that day, and she instantly became an important part of our family – the missing link if you will.

That’s a young me in 1985 holding a young Fluffy. I was about 60 pounds lighter than I am today.

She was the 5TH member of our family, and she was the start of nearly 30 years of felines in our family. Fluffy loved us all, but she clearly adored me the most. During her younger years she anxiously awaited me to open the basement / laundry room door for her first thing in the morning so that she could run (and beat me) to my bedroom upstairs for a long round of petting and purring. During her later years in Jacksonville Florida when she was slowly dying she literally came back to life over and over again and jumped and loved on me and ran upstairs to my parents’ guest room whenever I arrived for a short visit. She lived a long, happy, and healthy life (until April of 2001), and she provided lots of love to our family starting with that very first Christmas of 1983.

There have been other cats and dogs within our family over the years since then. Fluffy eventually gained a feline roommate with Barney (also known as “the cat that never liked me”). After Fluffy’s death Barney eventually gained his own feline roommate with Pumpkin. Boots was my own loving cat and housemate for 12½ years here in Homestead Florida until his (expected) death on May 17TH 2007. He was the coolest cat that ever lived.

But it all started with “Fluffy The Manx Cat”. She was the Matriarch of all of our family pets (to this day). She was the Queen of her castle. She was the stability of our family. She was our family’s common denominator. She was the center of attention. She was the most lovable cat that ever lived.

Fun Fact: This WordPress blog is a spinoff of my former hit music based massivesmash.com web site that I created in 1995. That web site grew out of a previous web site known as “MANx On The Net”. That first web site was a spinoff of “MANx Cat BBS” (1993-1997) – a dial-up bulletin board typical of its time that was inspired by and named after Fluffy.

Bible Blogging Christian Church God Holidays Ministry Scripture Travel Weather

Sunday Scripture

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date November 29, 2020

Greetings my friends ! This is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us be thankful for this new day that our God has blessed us with.

It is Sunday November 29TH 2020, and I am back home in South Florida from vacation with my family in North Texas ! I was there for 8 days, and as always it was filled with food and fun. We celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas together – known in our family as #ThanksChristmasGiving – a tradition that goes back about 15 years every traditional Thanksgiving Day. I got some great gifts this year !

My return trip back home via American Airlines was quite the bumpy ride. It was also a longer than normal ride. It took a more northerly route than its usual direct flightpath due to severe weather along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. But the ride – even at 35,000 feet above southern Arkansas, northern Mississippi, and northern Alabama – was quite rough – with the A321 Airbus jumping up-and-down and swaying back-and-forth in the ferocious winds along both sides of a strong cold front. A few passengers got sick. I was worried for a few minutes that I was getting sick as well, but luckily I was OK.

Once we got above North Florida the ride suddenly became smooth and trouble-free. It remained that way for the rest of the trek to Miami International Airport.

Well just as I have done for the past 3 years on the Sunday after Thanksgiving or the first Sunday of December – I’m preaching a full sermon to my church family this morning. I got the word late this past Wednesday night in North Texas, and I was actually writing a brand new sermon in-between my family-time. I finished it late yesterday here at home. I’ll be preaching on “Spirit & Truth” today – mostly from the first-half of John Chapter 16.

When the Spirit of truth comes – He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own, but will tell you what He has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring Me glory by telling you whatever He receives from Me. All that belongs to the Father is Mine. This is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever He receives from Me.’ (John 16:12-15)

Tags Bible, Blog, Christian, Church, God, Minister, Ministry, Scripture, Sermon, Thanksgiving

Blogging Home Weather

Tropical Storm Eta

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date November 12, 2020

It’s come and gone – a rare November Tropical Storm that made landfall (barely) here in South Florida. It crossed-over the Upper Florida Keys this past Sunday night with maximum sustained winds of 65 MPH. It came within about 65 miles (due south) of my home. Our maximum sustained winds here in Homestead Florida were just below 30 MPH, but we did have some wind gusts in the 40 to 50 MPH range late on Sunday night. That’s well below what was forecast. We also received about 4½ inches of rain – less than half of what was forecast. Parts of North Miami-Dade and Broward Counties received 12 to 18 inches of rain ! (They got more than they expected.)

Hurricane Season continues on until the end of November, and it looks like another storm is brewing to the south of us. It will likely become Tropical Storm Iota – the 30TH named storm of the season.

It’s actually “Dry Season” here in South Florida. It started on October 15TH, and it continues on until May 15TH (7 months total). It’s been a very wet year – and that includes the first month of “Dry Season”. Much of Miami-Dade and Broward Counties have received 80 to 90 inches of rain so far in 2020 (well above average and approaching record highs). Here in Homestead (South Miami-Dade) we’re not quite at those levels, but we’re close.

With La Niña here (our strongest since 2011) it should be mostly warm and dry here in South Florida this winter with frequent but very short bursts of cold air behind cold fronts. There’s also the usual slight chance of a freeze in late-December / early-January. We came real close to a freeze last January (2020) when we dropped to 38°F / 3°C. We started 2020 with geckos falling from trees.

YEP – I’m a weather geek. I’ve been one for over 40 years.

Blogging Driving Health Travel Weather

Miles

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date October 22, 2020

I’m currently on-track to drive just a little over 300 miles this month for the 3RD month in a row. That’s an improvement over April and May (during the peak of the pandemic) when I drove a mere 120 miles and 173 miles respectively. The anomaly months since the pandemic began were June and July when I drove 1,175 miles and 1,227 miles respectively. (Of course I also drove to and from South Alabama while on vacation.)

I’ll finish 2020 with less than 6,500 miles driven – well below my 2015 to 2019 annual average of over 10,200 miles.

I hope to get back to driving in a more normal year in 2021 with a few fun road-trips in the mix. I may also drive almost 3,000 miles to and from North Texas next November. I usually do so every 2 to 3 years, and I last did so last year.

And now for a different type of miles – my walking miles as per my Fitbit. In 2019 I averaged 17.27 miles per week. In 2020 I’m down to an average of 14.95 miles per week. I need to get more exercise in by walking more. I also need for it to cool down a bit here in South Florida. We typically drop into the 60s (20°C and below) in the morning for the first time in 5+ months in late-October / early-November once our 7-month dry season becomes fully entrenched. Once we start feeling the 60s I can get out early in the morning and walk around my neighborhood or drive down to the city park and walk laps around the asphalt track.

It’s all about moving from here to there whether it’s on 4 wheels or 2 feet. It’s all about the miles.