Winter has finally set in and we are having the weather to prove that winter is here at long last.
The following is an 'on the spot' weather report from my trusted friend and confidant - that lady in the 'Condo by the Sea' - Sydney! :
Good morning to you, well it's another early morning for me in "the Condo on the Seaside". It is 5 a.m. here in Tripoli, Libya and I want to go on record as saying "Houston . . . we have weather with a capital W!" Yes, I know I have been touting the fact that we have had cool fronts, coolish weather and so for several weeks now, but honey, was I wrong!
Yesterday morning around 3:30 I awoke with the sound of the wall behind (which is a outside wall) my head being pounded by some giant throwing fists full of rocks or other related objects at the outside wall. It was as if it was being sandblasted by the giant from hell with a twisted notion of a wake up call, much like a legendary sergeant in the Marines. I was compelled to get up out of my snug bed to investigate. I went to the living room balcony doors intending to open them but upon arriving there, quickly rethought that in seconds since I could hear the giant trying to throw the rocks through the shutters. I was hooked now. I just had to know what was happening outside, so quickly went to the opposite side of the apartment to check if it was safe to open a window shutter there. Now I could feel intermittent shuddering of the building from thunder. Oh this was serious Weather! Our buildings here in Tripoli are made of stout cement blocks and cement, so for a building to shudder, you can only imagine the force being exerted toward it. I opened the shutter to find a scene from Dante's facing me. Hail of varying size was being slammed into anything caught in its path. Rain was slicing into ethos, along with the strangest phenomenon I ever witnessed in my entire life, lighting stuck into a flicker mode of such speed that it was unable to suddenly produce the heretofore roaring thunder. It was flickering as if it was a neon sign in its last throe's of death.
This lasted for all of a half an hour. Then it was high winds and sprinkling rain off and on for most of the day until late afternoon. The evening began with howling winds that blew through our condo like an express train on a track out of control, determined to take all in its way with it. We are on the 4th floor by American standards, and the 3rd by European standards, but the long and short of it being we are high up with nothing to break the onslaught of the northerly winds coming straight off the sea all the way from Italian Alps nor the southerly winds out of the Sahara dessert .The shutters over the windows rattle, oh did I say rattle? I amend that to something more akin to a "shaken baby syndrome" for the shutters never stop their constant chattering, with the incessant sound of slamming and banging as they are flung back and forth inside their moorings. The rain can be heard now and then pounding the wall behind my bed for the second night in a row. The wind making its presence known by the freezing temperature in the apartment despite the two heaters blasting away. We are bundled into our warmest clothes in many layers to combat the wind that probes for any weak spots that might not be safely covered.
So here I am at 5:00 in the morning unable to sleep any longer in my nice and cozy bed due to the weather outside. It is so invigorating, making you come alive. Calling a sirens song that compels one to wittiness it in it's wild beauty. A gloriously wanton entity enticing you, as it sensuously moves before your presence, tauntingly beckoning you join in the activities. Who is strong enough to resist Her? Weather, you got to love Her. Here in Libya they have an expression roughly translated to mean "How's your weather?" that is asked when someone is enquiring of your state of being , much like our equivalent to "How's it going ?". So, you see the weather is always with us even when we take no notice of it. Maybe that is why She has such temper tantrums like Katrina, to make us pay attention to Her. Well, you have a nice day today, and by the way … How's your weather?
This morning I went outside to bring in the laundry. The weather was overcast and cool. I was quickly removing the laundry from the lines and nearly grabbed hold of a locust, thinking it was a clothespin! Last year Libya was invaded by locusts and I had thought that they were all gone, but here was a lone locust on my clothesline. It was stunned from the cold and barely moving.
