I am trying to catch up before we leave for Cartagena, Colombia next Wednesday. ~Gasp~ did I say next Wednesday? I don't feel prepared at all. So, before too much time goes by I wanted to share the photos I took of Sandy damage while at the shore two weeks ago. 

Words are not necessary. The images say it all but I will fill you in a little bit as we go along. If you are one of those people who think everything is back to normal on the Jersey shore, please take a look.

These photos were taken as we walked down the street where our friends' house is and in the surrounding neighborhood (Bay Head). As you will see, the sand covers everything.

In this photo, notice the bent stop sign.

A typical street.

We took a drive to "ground zero" aka Mantoloking. All these shots were taken while driving with my camera pointed out the window, so please excuse!

You will notice the piles of sand where none used to be and porches propped up where supports used to be. Also, the trees have mostly all died from being inundated with the salt water. So sad.

What is left of some of the houses and empty spaces where they used to be.

And to end, the house that our friends looked at and considered buying.

We've been hearing them in varying degrees of intensity for about a week now. First over in neighbor Aileen's trees and then over across the street behind Kim's house. 

I got an email from Kim just the other day with the title "Aliens?" where she proceeded to say that she thought we were being invaded by aliens and that the mother ship was close by. She asked if we could hear that noise (like an air conditioner running all the time, she said) and what was it. She said she couldn't tell where it was coming from. Uhm, Kim, it's the 17-Year Cicada invasion. Haven't you heard? I guess she didn't know because she didn't believe me.

Aliens, indeed. They have black bodies with golden wings and beady little red eyes. And yes, it does sound a bit like the mother ship is hovering somewhere close by. They only sing in the mornings through early afternoon which is kind of odd. I don't mind them at all and find their loud cohesive humming rather soothing.

I finally got to see two of them yesterday. One was hanging on the outside of the dining room window screen, and the other was stuck in Bella's wading pool so it made a perfect subject for a photo. I think in the first photo its shadow does look rather like an alien space ship!

I thought it was dead so I tried lifting it out on my finger, but much to my surprise it was very much alive and held on with all its might with its sticky, strong little legs. Ack! I shook it off and it fell back into the water again. I felt sorry for it so I grabbed a piece of wood for it to climb on instead of my finger (which had felt like it was in a vise grip) and rescued the poor thing. I put it on the railing of the deck to dry off and soon it had disappeared—back to become assimilated by the Borg I assume.

And, speaking of being absorbed back into environments again, Rick's mom is now home once again. We are happy to announce she arrived without taking any cross-country detours and with her luggage! We thoroughly enjoyed her stay. More on that a bit later …

ADDENDUM: Steve found this great link to a video of the cicadas, complete with a musician to sing along with them. You can find it in the comment section or click here.

Linked to Rural Blog Hop!

Sorry about the lapse. Did anyone miss me this week? What I thought was just a cold or sinus infection turned out to be strep. So, I've not been feeling the best to say the least. I finally went to the doctor on Thursday afternoon and after one look at the pus on my right tonsil, she swabbed it for strep. The test came back a faint positive, but she said she was going for strep and the treatment as such. Three days in on the antibiotics and I am starting to come around to feeling human again. 

It didn't come at a very good time considering my mom-in-law is here visiting. Not that it stopped us much from going and doing as we had planned, but by Thursday I was dragging my butt behind me. I'm sorry I haven't been around to anyone's blogs but I just haven't felt good enough to sit and concentrate on much of anything. The pressure in my sinuses has been enough to blow my head off.

My mom-in-law's luggage finally showed up at 11:00 p.m. on Sunday night (she arrived Friday morning). She was so glad to see her own clothes again. Rick did have to take her out shopping for essentials and since those first few days that she was here were pretty darn chilly we loaned her some outerwear items. Not that she is needing them the past few days which have seen temps rise into the high 80s! She has seen quite a spectrum of weather since she arrived. We are all now huddled inside with the A/C blasting.

The 17 year cicadas have arrived and are starting to make themselves known. They mostly "sing" in the mornings and they sound different than our normal July/August cicadas. Rick found one by the shed and got to stare into its red eyes, but I have only managed to find the papery husks left over from them molting. They are more of a continuous hum than the back-and-forth banter of our own normal ones. When we first heard them I thought they were a machine running somewhere close by. I find it soothing but Rick finds it disturbing, like a plague about to land on us.

Still no fireflies. Rick and I thought we saw one the other night, but every night since when we look for them we see nothing. My mom-in-law has never seen one so we are hoping they will still make an appearance either tonight or tomorrow night before she has to leave.

The pool was opened on the 20th of May and the temperature was 54 degrees. Today we swam (yeah!) and it was 72 degrees. The new cabana is wonderful and hopefully I will have some pics to share this week.

I have more to say but I think I've at least caught you up a bit now. This is the first time I have felt like sitting here long enough to blog.

Photo: This tiny cat door was seen on our food tour of NYC last Sunday. I thought it was very cute.

Our back yard view last weekend.

It's a good thing I only have to type and not talk to tell you about our weekend at the shore last weekend because at the moment I can only whisper. With this darned head cold I have lost my voice (of course I always do when I have lots of back of the throat drainage). It's also painful to swallow so I might just lose those extra couple of pounds I've been trying to shed during this.

Anyway, like the caption under the photo says, this is Andy & Linda's back yard: the beach! The weather was probably the best on Friday afternoon when we arrived. The sun was out and it was pleasantly warm.. Bella got her swim in the ocean but she wants to go into more detail with you herself so I'll leave the particulars for her to tell.

The dogs adapted themselves to the house and to Andy & Linda right away. They were very good, even when we were outside and loose dogs on the beach would come up to the somewhat wispy fencing of board slats and wire. I was afraid Bella would try to jump it since it wasn't very tall, or worse yet put her front feet on the fence with her full weight and literally pull the fence to the ground. But she did none of those things. Alex was feeling so at home by the end of our stay that he barked when Andy came into the room as if to say "who are you, this is my house" and Andy would gently remind him that he pays the bills, not Alex.  Here are Alex and Bella happily resting on the deck

Although Andy & Linda's house is now almost fully restored, the same cannot be said about their neighbors. Here is looking one direction down the beach at the next door neighbors' house. See those flags in the distance? I'll show another photo of that house in a later photo, so keep it in mind. The house you see here boarded up will need a new foundation since the old one cracked during Sandy. They'll have to lift the whole house up, all three stories, in order for that to happen. 

Here is a photo looking the other direction, up the beach toward Point Pleasant.

Streets and yards are still filled with sand and debris. It's sobering. And here is a closer look at the house four or five houses down that split in half.

I have more very dramatic photos of the hurricane damage that still exits, and believe me, there is more than you can even imagine, but those photos are for another post. I'll leave you with Bella exploring the dune in the back yard.

My poor mother-in-law! We had bad storms here in New Jersey today and of course, this was the day she was flying in. We kept checking throughout the day and her flight kept getting delayed. She was supposed to arrive around 7:00 p.m. but was then delayed until an arrival time of 10:00 p.m. Finally she called us around 6:30 p.m. to tell us that her flight from Houston to Newark was cancelled and that she was booked on a flight from Houston to San Francisco and then on to Newark, finally arriving tomorrow morning at 7:09 a.m.

Poor woman! Nothing like flying east, then west, then way east again.

In the meantime, only since last night I seem to be coming down with a summer cold. Sore throat, tonsils swollen like golf balls, drainage, swallowing knives, aches and pains, etc. I still plan to blog about our trip to the shore but today I was blindsided by not feeling up to par. I even laid down at one point on the bed and tried to nap which is totally out of character for me. boo hoo!