Friday, May 2, 2008

Sirens in the night

Hmm, hmm, hmmm,


It's been a pretty good week. Except for the fact that I should be about 15 pounds lighter, and I'm NOT ! I've been a very, very good girl, walking miles upon miles, eating practically nothing, and thinking very skinny thoughts, but it's just not working !!! (insert very pouty face and a two year old -type foot stomp of frustration) But I refuse to allow such stupid things to control my life or my attitude. In fact, I'm thinking of throwing out the stupid bathroom scales - I don't like them anymore anyway.

We have actually had four, count 'em FOUR, straight days of sunshine and warm weather ! But, that's all over now. This evening, just as I was finishing the last dog walk of the day, the skies clouded over, and the winds took a change in direction, and the skies got that eerie green glow. No sooner had I thrown the steaks onto the George Foreman grill, and tossed the potatoes in the microwave, than the tornado sirens started blowing. Roy still hadn't gotten home yet, so I had Nick switch over to a local channel to see what was going on in our area. (the only time that I am allowed to hold the remote is between 2:00 and 4:30 AM) Every local channel was covered with Severe weather alerts, maps, Doppler radar, and all kinds of pretty colors. We all sat in silence and watched for about five minutes. My youngest, and most hysterical daughter, walked into the room with her eyes wide.
"Mom, the sirens are going off, shouldn't we all go to the basement?!"
Nick and I both looked at her and said,"Nah!"
Nick flipped back to the History Channel, and I went back to my steaks in the kitchen.
"But, guys, the sirens. . . . tornadoes . . . Wosh !!!" She said throwing her arms up in the air to indicate total destruction.
I said, "Honey, we live in Kansas, and Your Dad brought home these lovely, fresh T-bone steaks last night, when he fixed the cooler at the butcher's shop; So, no, we are not going to go hide in the basement - we are going to have steak for dinner. If a fresher cow goes flying past the window, then, we will go downstairs!" (yes, my husband does, occasionally do work for barter - but, if he ever brings home a bunch of live chickens instead of $50.00, I'm going to kick his ass.)
"Yeah, the guy in charge of the siren button is just all excited about using it, that's all." added Nick. She looked at us both like we were crazy, shrugged, and went downstairs mumbling about 'that's not what they said to do in school . . .' (which is why she doesn't go to public school anymore.)

So, as the sirens wailed away, I cooked dinner. Half an hour later, they gave up on the whole exercise because, in spite of the fact that "conditions were favorable" enough to issue a tornado warning, not a single tornado ever touched down, or was even spotted. So goes life in Kansas. After a while, you just get bored with the whole thing. After 45 years of living here, I guess I've come to see things like that a little differently. During dinner, Heather asked me if I had ever actually seen a tornado? And yes, I have -from a distance. They have never really gotten close enough to make me feel threatened. In fact, I think that I've only sought shelter in the basement twice in my whole life.

About seven years ago, we had a very serious tornado come through a neighborhood that we had just moved out of, only a couple of weeks before. The next day, we drove out to see our old house. Every house on our old street was completely destroyed - except for, the house that we had lived in - it was totally untouched. Fortunately, we were safe in another county, 30 minutes away from it all. I doubt that I would have been standing on the front porch watching all that. I'm sure that had we still lived there, I would have been cowering in the basement with my family, and all my dogs, gathered around. But that's the thing about tornadoes, either you are in it's path, or you're not.

Thankfully, tonight, those storm cells never produced any tornadoes over us, and no one was hurt. I'm going to go check the news reports now, and hopefully, everyone else in this storm's path was as lucky as we were.

Good night all, hope that everyone has a safe and happy weekend.

Love,
Susan

1 howled back:

Anonymous said...

Wow! there be some excitement happening in your neighbourhood huh?

I think I'd be with Heather on this...but if the weather man says to get in the basement, then we need to get in the basement! :)

Glad you are safe and hope none 'pop up' out of the blue while you get some sleep.
love mel