Held Hostage

Last night it got to -9 in Nome, Alaska.

The Hawaiian Islands and Florida are hovering in the upper 70's and low 80's.

After the tease of a few days of warm weather, we're hovering right around freezing, give or take, here in Los Alamos. It's snowing as I type this. Around town, I hear people complaining about this extension of winter and I haven't an ounce of sympathy for them. You chose to live in the mountains! This is what happens! Between the places I have lived and the places I have visited, I've seen snow fall in every month with the exception of July (but I've still seen it on the ground in July!). If it is still snowing in May, I may join in the local griping.

It being chilly yesterday afternoon, I decided it was an excellent opportunity to pay our hot tub the time it deserves. It's on the deck behind the house and the way the fence is, it is quite private from our neighbors on either side. Truth be told, I have only ever worn a swimsuit in the hot tub on the two occasions when we had guests. With those exceptions, hot tubbing at our house is quite a natural experience, if you know what I mean.

I hadn't been in more than 10 or 15 minutes when I heard the noise of an overhead aircraft approaching. This usually doesn't bother me but this particular helicopter flew by so low that I could read what was written on the bottom of it. Turns out, this hovering contraption was owned by the local ABC affiliate! Ahh! As soon as it was gone, it came back again...and again! It hovered back and forth over our neighborhood for about 15 minutes before it stayed away long enough for me to make a mad dash for the house.

We don't live far from a main road and I'd heard some sirens about an hour before so I figured it was getting some footage of an accident or something like that for the evening news. I knew in my head that it wasn't there to capture the happenings of local backyards but my nervously beating heart was also forcing images in my head of the censored blurriness of some crazed mad woman on TV running around in her backyard with the Channel 7 logo in the bottom corner of the screen.

The good news is, I made it to the house and about 40 minutes later, learned on the news that someone had run a van into a Montessori School (after the kiddies were gone - whew!) setting the vehicle and building on fire due to also cutting a gas line. It's amazing and a blessing that no one was injured let alone killed.

So that was the excitement for me for the last couple days. Being held hostage on my own property by a news helicopter while wearing absolutely no clothes. This is the life I lead.

Keep It Real!