Weather

11:58am, Park Avenue at Robinson Avenue, Downtown Oklahoma City
Downtown bustles during the noon hour as people venture out to enjoy the beautiful day over their lunch break. Today is absolutely gorgeous and the perfect temperature!

(Check out the Google Maps Street View of this intersection.)

*
* Taken with my iPhone

11:59am, Richey’s Grill in the Oklahoma Tower, Downtown Oklahoma City
Karla joins me for an impromptu lunch date, an instant cure to the Monday malaise. (The gorgeous mid-day weather certainly helped act as an antidote to the Monday-induced mental dreariness.)

*
* Taken with my iPhone. Standard disclaimer about the photography quality applies.

You know it’s been hot when you eagerly look forward to a “cold” front coming in a few days that will bring daytime highs down to the mid to lower 90s.

And it couldn’t come fast enough. Officially we broke the record yesterday at 106 degrees (recorded at the weather station of record for Oklahoma City). It sure felt hotter than that — especially in the sun. It was miserable. And today is not much better. But with the encouraging 7-day forecast, I’m definitely looking toward the weekend… 90 degrees on Sunday! Woo hoo!

It’s hard not to be lazy when it’s this freakin’ hot. Yesterday it hit 106. Today’s not supposed to be much better. Even if you work indoors mostly, this kind of heat can still get to you because you still have to get to and from work and to and from the house as you run various errands or whatever. It just plain zaps your energy… and your willpower to do anything constructive. It’s so oppressive that you try to do anything to avoid being outside — or at least I do.

However, yesterday I braved the extreme heat to cook some pork chops on our gas grill. Between the 500-plus degree heat emanating from the grill and the 100-plus degree heat bearing down on me from the atmosphere, I was baking almost as thoroughly as the pork chops. Several times I had to come inside because I was feeling very faint and about to pass out. But I can tell you — and the rest of the family will agree — it was worth it! The pork chops were amazing.

I was using a recipe from Anne Burrell from Secrets of a Restaurant Chef on The Food Network. It was Brined Pork Chops with Soft Parmigiano Polenta, served with Sauteed Swiss Chard with Bacon. OH. MY. GOSH. It was absolutely amazing… I don’t think I’ve had better pork chops in a five-star restaurant. Seriously.

The key to the success, I believe, was brining to the pork for at least three days. The recipe called for three days, but we actually waited an extra day (because we weren’t ready to do it on Saturday). The pork chops were amazingly tender and very juicy. Amazingly juicy. And the pork chops had a wonderful flavor without adding any sauces or anything else to it after the brining of it. I mean, if Ashley, who’s not a big meat eater at all, rolls her eyes in delight and says, “oh my gosh, this is amazing,” then it had to be extra special.

This was the first time I’ve ever brined pork. In the past, I’ve brined turkey and chicken, always with great success. I’m a big believer in and passionate proponent of brining. Now I can add another meat to my list of incredible brining success! We will definitely be doing this again!

So, despite the oppressive heat, it was all worth it in the end. But, because of spending that time in the extreme heat and because of the incredibly satisfying meal, I was pretty much worthless the rest of yesterday afternoon… and evening… doing my part to define what it means when people talk about “the lazy days of summer.”

It’s 3am and the phone is ringing the weather alarm is going off for the “nth” time. Severe storms are approaching our area, interrupting (once again) a night of much-needed sleep. Tornado warnings are being issued off-and-on, enough to raise concern as it nears the metro. So, once again, I’m up (because I can’t sleep when I know that potentially serious weather is coming) and glued to the weather coverage… and this is what it looks like as I write this…

I didn’t need sleep anyway… <rolling eyes because this weekend has been a very exhausting weekend> … so I’ll try to get some work done.

> UPDATE @ 4:04am:
The worst of the severe weather in our area has passed. It really wasn’t bad at all. What a waste of my precious sleep, although I’m grateful it wasn’t as bad as it looked an hour ago.

I’m going back to bed to try to catch a little more shuteye before the workday begins. I didn’t get much work done. Too tired.

It’s been a very busy holiday weekend weather-wise. It’s been a long while since I’ve seen so much tornadic weather hit the state in such a concentrated period of time.

Yesterday, western Oklahoma got hit pretty hard with severe storms, including high winds, large hail, torrential rains and continual threats of tornadoes. That storm complex made it to our area about 2 this morning. Fortunately most of the rotation had died down, but the wind was still pretty fierce.

Today, we’re looking at the possibility for more severe weather as a cold front moves through the state. Like BritGal Sarah, I’m starting to get worn down by all the watches and warnings. I pretty sure most of Oklahoma (and many plains states) are ready for some peace and quiet for a few days (and weeks).

Continued

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that sleep has been a challenge for me. I’ve been through a sleep study and been diagnosed with severe sleep apnea. I was prescribed a CPAP, which is supposed to help alleviate the most severe symptoms of my sleep apnea.

The magic cure hasn’t been so magical — at least not yet.

My first challenge was the first nasal mask that I started out with. It worked okay except that it rubbed the bridge of my honkin’ big nose raw, to the point that wearing it would actually wake me up in the middle of the night and the discomfort of wearing it with the raw sore on my nose was too much to keep wearing it all night. So, last week I went back to the sleep clinic to get a new style of mask, a nasal pillow. Continued

Last Saturday, our family spent some time visiting Oklahoma History Center. It’s the first time we’ve been since they opened the 215,000 square-foot facility across from the Capital building a few years ago. The center’s materials boast the museum’s “Smithsonian-quality exhibits” with “2,000 artifacts reflecting Oklahoma’s inspiring and adventurous past.” I’m not sure that I would compare it to the Smithsonian, but it was interesting and educational.

There are four main galleries inside the museum — one dedicated to Native American history and the other three exploring Oklahoma’s rich and diverse history and culture. There is also an exhibit about Oklahoma’s contribution to space exploration, including the Gemini 6 Capsule display. The impressive great hall has replica of the famous “Winnie Mae” airplane flown by aviation pioneer and Oklahoma native Wiley Post. There is a new exhibit that will open this week — “Field, Forest & Stream: The History of Oklahomans and the Outdoors.”

There are several exhibits outside the museum, but it was a little chilly on Saturday so we didn’t explore those, except for the sculpture at the entrance of the museum. Continued

“What?!?” you ask. “A tornado warning and you went back to sleep?”

Indeed I did. I heard the weather radio go off (for the nth hundredth time of the night) announcing a tornado warning for our area. I suppose the sheer volume of alerts over the previous five hours had desensitized me to the announcements. I heard it, quickly dismissed it and went back to sleep — until my youngest daughter came into our room and told me, with a good deal of distress, that the tornado sirens were going off.

I quickly grabbed the TV remote and switched on the TV to find live weather coverage on all three of our major local news channels. Indeed the storm was approaching our city, but I waited to see exactly where it was going before I called for any kind of evacuation of our household, which is no minor ordeal with three canines. As a seasoned Oklahoman, I have seen enough weather coverage to know what to look for on the radar and determine just how close it’ll get. We no longer head for the tornado shelter just because the sirens go off and just because our county — or even city — is under a tornado warning. We — as in I — wait until it appears that we’re in its direct path. Continued