Friday night a nasty storm blew through my hometown. I laid next to James in our camper watching the lightning get closer and closer. Suddenly, the wind picked up and I wondered out loud if we were safer in the camper or in the Suburban. James answered me with a grunt and snore. So I stared out the window watching the tall spindly pine trees the occupy our future backyard bend back and forth waiting for one of them to crack under the pressure.
I have always been equally fascinated and horrified of severe storms. When I was young, my dad would listen to the weather statements on the radio in the bathroom. (what? you didn’t have a radio in your bathroom? dude, you missed out on lip synching to bad 80′s music in the mirror.) He would pace up and down the hallway looking out the windows until the storms had finally passed. Even if they were just your garden variety thunderstorm I would sneak into my parents’ bedroom and crawl into bed with them. As I got older I would sleep on the floor without bothering to wake them.
The summer I moved to Delaware I lived through the aftermath of several hurricanes. Then, the next summer I was in Dallas, Texas. Dallas weather makes weather in Delaware and Minnesota look like child’s play. When I lived in Dallas I worked for a large satellite radio network run by a mouse whose balls are safely kept under Goofy’s hat. I had a full time job there during the week, but on Friday nights I would go back in to help with production of a morning show’s weekend show. (this is hard without naming names)
ANYWAY! Once I had to go into work and there was a tornado warning out for our area. My sister, who was my roommate and co-worker, told me that I should be fine and to just get my ass into work or there would be a lot of pissed off affiliates. OK, she might not have said all of that, most of it was the nagging voice in my head.
So, I drove to work. The entire time it felt like the wind was picking up the little Mazda I had toot tooted my way around the Metroplex. Surrounded my rednecks in pickup trucks with their windows down “woo hoo”ing and waiting to be taken to the Wizard.
A work the power would go out and the satellite feed was totally messed up. My bosses, who loved me so, came in to keep my company as we sat through another airing of both weekend shows to make sure it all went out right.
Sometimes I miss Dallas. Not for the storms, but for the friends I made.
*weep*
I freakin’ forgot what this post was going to be about. I took three left turns back there. Back to Friday night. I didn’t flip out. I had taken a couple of Advil PM and it took me off to dream land where I don’t remember any dreams I had because the sleep was *that* good.
The next morning my brother came over to help up construct our future basement. The neighbors stopped by to offer us their extra bedrooms if the weather ever got bad again. My brother told us how a huge pine tree had blown down by an apartment building down the road. The pine tree that they used to decorate with blue lights for Christmas has blown into the apartment building, littering the balconies of the tenants.
Another left turn … I love Christmas lights.
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