Tornado @ MindSay

our mind playing tricks and putting together some strange drama in our sleeps for its own amusement. Sometimes though, they're not. Sometimes they're more. Mine always are. I warned of a tornado once. I was just a little girl so no one believed me, and even though Mamma thought there might be something to it... She was killed by it just the same. Her soul was taken right up into heaven, right up into the clouds. Her body was dropped right back down though. And my Daddy, I dreamed of water the night before our wagon turned over on him as he tried to cross Logan's Creek... in the deep part. Not all are sad though... I dreamed of a young man with a fire in his eyes and a fine will to live. Couldn't make out his face, but the very next day I was introduced to my own Tyler and I knew right then that we had met in my dreams, and that he was the one mint for me. And he was. Those dreams I understood. My dreams now, I don't. Four nights... all in a row. Same one, I'm just flying... through the clouds lightening in the distance but I can feel it shooting through me... floating through clouds full of water, but none of it would fall... and I reach out into the clouds but all I come away with is dust. Don't know what to make that. At least I hope I don't. Then... the clouds... they turn to steam. On my face I can feel it... and the rumble of a locomotive engine throughout my body, and this rumble shakes me so hard it leaves a whole where my heart should be... but there's nothing there now... my insides are all gone. The train whistle sounds like a scream... and there's something familiar about it...


GOD I LOVE THE PLAY THE ORPHAN TRAIN

According to the emergency plan flip chart handed out to everyone who works at my office, if we see a tornado we are to call our central security office immediately.  I'm sorry.  But given that I work in downtown Washington, DC, if I see a tornado out my office window, my ass is running.

Close, but not quite. Perhaps I should've taken that whole "Beware the Ides of March" warning a bit more seriously. I promise not to make stupid jokes about such serious business in years to come. Probably.

 

As you may have heard, we had some interesting weather out this way on Friday and Saturday. And it enjoyed toying with us. According to local radio- which is the only news I've had available since the cable is still out, thus no tv, internet or phones- at least 5 tornadoes were confirmed within a five mile radius of my home on Saturday. One seemed to particularly like me, as it passed on three sides of our house within 100 feet. My neighbor supposedly has it on video, but I'm not quite sure I want to see it. Hearing it was interesting enough, thanks. Felt like vacuum cleaners on both my ears, trying to suck my brains out. According to the neighbor who stupidly stood there watching, it came along the road in front of the house, curved around the side up the creek, played around in our backyard for a while, by which point it was over 150 feet across, covering our yard and the immediate neighbors, but not touching down at that point. Then it hopped across the road behind us and started doing some serious damage. He said "It was just like tv, man! Just like tv!"

 

We were very fortunate, few trees down and damage to our back storage building but we and our house are fine.

 

Remember my poor Bradford Pear tree that was struck by lightning last year? Half of it was knocked off then, but the remaining half was blooming this year, so it was pretty but rather lopsided. Well, twister decided to carry off most of the other half, so what's left is just a thin strip down the middle. One very bizarre looking tree. Poor baby.

 

We live in a heavily wooded area. Correction- we used to live in a heavily wooded area. We now live surrounded by hundreds, probably thousands of tree carcasses. The smell of pine is overwhelming.

 

Few near neighbors lost their roofs and some few homes are destroyed, but very few serious injuries, thankfully.

 

Will try to have a more cohesive story and maybe a few pictures soon. At the moment I'm taking advantage of free wifi at the library (bless them) and have some job leads to follow up on before the library closes.  

 

People who deserve recognition- the postal service claims that neither rain nor sleet nor dark of night will stop the mail. Apparently, neither will tornadoes. Not ten minutes after the first wave, here comes the mailman dodging his truck around fallen trees to deliver the mail. Brave, stupid, or determined, I don't know.

Hopefully he got safely somewhere, since the next wave was much worse.

 

Bless the road crews who had the roads cleared of hundreds of downed trees within hours. Absolutely amazing.

 

Huge thanks to Georgia Power, who worked round the clock to get power back on in only about 30 hours- amazing considering the number of downed lines.

 

Kudos to the local radio station, who lifted their feet and stayed on air despite flooding, hail, and etc.

 

The following is video footage of one of the twisters that hit the Kenosha area:



Seems like we're hit again with weird weather this winter. I hope that all my southeastern Wisconsin peeps are safe. That's one nasty twister!

Illnois and Arkansas were also hit with tornadoes yesterday. I submitted this rare weather news to Mindsay. Let's see if they'll post anything about it...

Seriously!  All you vetern moms and dad's out there can you please answer the subject question?

 

This weekend my house was spotless!  All the laundry done and put away, dishes done and put away, toys put away, floors swept and mopped, bathroom scrubbed, kitchen scrubbed, bedrooms picked up and all carpets vaccumed!  Even the weekly pet chores of chaning litter boxes and bird cage was taken care of!

 

How in the Good Goddess Anu does a house get trashed in less than a day!  Less than a farking Day!  The kids got up yesterday, got ready for school and went to school!  I picked them up from school and we headed to the city to do some weekly/biweekly shopping for the house and went out to eat! 

 

Today there are toys everywhere, school papers everywhere, dirty laundry everywhere!  I just got done picking up and rescrubbing the kitchen from breakfast!  I still have to sweep and mop but I am saving that for the kids after taekwondo and home work tonight!

 

What is the whole point of cleaning and trying to have a nice house when your family and pets destroy the cleanlyness in less than one day!  And my kids do their chores daily!  If they don't they don't get stars at taekwondo and they don't get anything when we go shopping!

 

Even my bedroom is trashed again!  And I have only been in there since Sunday to sleep!  I have dog toys, cat toys, kid toys, my clean clothes that should have been in the basket are stewn about my bed! CDs all over the farking place!  The TV room and Computer room upstairs are the only ones that didn't get trashed to all hades yesterday and this morning!

 

Kids are little tornadoes!