NaBloPoMo 2011: Day 2

If you knew that whatever you ate next would be your last meal, what would you want it to be?

A Last Meal? Do you know something I don’t?

Just when I started this, the Civil defense sirens kicked on and started screaming – then I remembered that this is the first Wednesday of the month and the weather is good. Just a test, only a test – WHEW!

It got me thinking, though, about a last meal and about the best meals I have ever had.

1. The top of my best meals list would have to be the week after the Tornado and kids from a local high school came through the neighborhood handing out breakfast biscuits. We tried to refuse them, figuring that other people could use them more than we, but then we understood that these people were hurting too and their way to deal was to try to help us. That was a really good meal.
2. The second of my best meals would have to be at our wedding rehearsal dinner. I don’t remember what I ate, but the meal was wonderful.
3. My third was when I went to Ru San’s with my dear friend to have sushi. I have always held that meal as a special one.
4. While I was in college, a bunch of us pooled our money and went to Nikolai’s Roof in Atlanta. It was the 1980s and we were tasting the good life, and it tasted good!

As for a BEST Last Meal, I’d have to ask for 3 things:

1. Vegetarian Sushi
2. Carrot Cake for dessert
3. my wife to share the time with

That would be the BEST!

The story so far…

If you are just joining us, here’s what you missed:
February had slipped into April and the garden was in full planting with sprouts and the budding of peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes beginning to appear. I was in the death rolls of a CISSP class at UAB and aimed for the CISSP exam in my near future… my attitude towards it was well expressed by the quote from the movie, Mystery Men: “We’ve got a blind date with destiny… and it looks like she’s ordered the lobster.”

Little did I know how messy the lobster could be.

April 27, 2011 was a dread filled Wednesday. I wrote about my first week since that day, below, but what happened since then?

Since then, the yard cleanup continued until we had the large logs arranged in the back yard like a paddock for the dogs to get out and run in (since the fence was demolished). We call it Fort Bitch. We continued living in our damaged house for about a month, until the insurance company could find us a temporary place while our house could be repaired.

Our temporary place is an unused starter mansion in a lake front community inhabited by doctors and such, called Lake Crest, on Lake Tuscaloosa. We moved most of our belongings into a POD on our front lawn, and then moved us, our clothes, the dogs, the dragon and a few personal belongings into the starter mansion. We left our 4 bedroom, 2 bath ranch style house for a 3 floor, 6 bedroom, 5 bath mansion with a huge kitchen, garage, office, down stairs den, and safe room.

The only way the bedroom decorations could have more freaky was to have the kids’ names stenciled on the doors before we arrived. Aside from the Master, the bedrooms are The China Room, decorated in an oriental style, black lacquered furniture and Chinese masks on the wall, The Fairy Room, with pink walls and fairy decorations, the Dragon Room, in blues, with dragons in the lamps, bed, mirror, and wall paper, and the Africa room, with its leopard and giraffe print covers ceremonial masks on the wall, and elephant styled chair and stool. Our Kids’ tastes: Asian art and literature (son), Pink, Fairies (daughter), All things Dragon (son), all things Africa (son)… FREAKY!

The mansion is weird. The neighborhood must have some agreement… none of the houses have anything on their front doors and most have nothing on the front windows aside from some shutters, so at night everyone can see into everyone’s living room. The dogs hate it, they bark at every car and person passing by the house – because they can see them all! Also, none of the doors close and latch (and stay close at more than a light push), unless bolted. The windows are not well sealed, and the wind whistles through the place like a tea kettle. Oh! and the scorpions in the downstairs den are no joy either.

Our, OUR, house has a new metal roof and new structure underneath. The bathrooms are being rebuilt (both were leaking, cracked, and mold had set in after the storm). The kitchen, directly under one of the large trees, is just a room of studs, but they have found all the live wires in the house that were uncapped and bare in the walls – a fire waiting to happen. The electrical and plumbing have passed inspection, so sheet rock installation can begin. After that, the kitchen should go pretty quickly.

I, finally, took my CISSP exam and am awaiting my results. The test took me 5 hours to take, plus the 3 hour commute to and from the testing site in Huntsville, made for a very long day.

We had hoped to have Halloween as our celebration in our house in our neighborhood, with our friends, but we are still in the mansion. Halloween in the mansion neighborhood was like when I was a kid, my kids each got a BAG FULL of candy, and I heard several people say, while we were out and about, “OK, we are going to go home, dump our bags and then continue…” There was a lot of candy to be had.

We had hoped for Halloween in our house, now we are hoping for Thanksgiving.

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UPDATE: 30 Nov 2011

Well, we missed getting home by Thanksgiving, so now we are REALLY hoping for a Christmas return. We joked that the unpacking of the pod would be like presents on Christmas morning. Now it very well may be. Guess where all of our Winter clothing is stored. Go on, guess. YES! In the back of the pod, behind and under everything else we packed!

I just received an eMail that I had to share:

Dear Christopher Copeland:

Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that you have passed the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®) examination

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NOW, you are caught up.