Saturday Snapshot

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I'm a little late posting, but my day started at 5 a.m. and just recently ended with a ferocious storm. I captured a picture of the wind and rain from our front porch.

The storm knocked down tree limbs and flooded the streets with sheets of water before it cleared up.

Blowing in the Wind

I was midway through Yoga X -- I think I was on tree pose standing on one leg with the other leg bent and my foot placed against my inner thigh as my hands reached up toward the ceiling -- when I noticed that the light outside had faded. That's when the trees began to rustle and the leaves pulled as if trying to escape their fastening to branches. The limbs bent with the wind then whipped back.
I stepped onto the front porch and looked up at the patch of sky I could see. Gray clouds raced past but I couldn't see the horizon and the storm clouds piling up. I returned to yoga.

As I attempted a cat stretch, I heard gusts of wind whip through the trees and my phone rang.
"What's it doing there?" asked my husband who was a few miles away downtown.
"Blowing," I said. "Is there a tornado warning?"
Last week we had a surprise tornado warning and the weather service reported eight tornadoes in the state.
Just as Earl was giving me the weather report, Spencer slammed in the back door cursing the car.
"The door won't close," he said. "I had to drive home holding onto the door and I almost died."
"You have to fix it," he bellowed at me.
"Look at me. I'm 5-foot, 4. How can I fix it if you can't?" I asked.
He continued to rant and I told him to come with me. The sky was grayish purple as I knelt down to look at the car door. The latch that usually opened to release the door was stuck closed. I poked at the metal latch while Spencer talked on the phone to Earl and the thunder began to rumble.
Spencer handed me the phone and Earl went into a long explanation while lightning speared from the sky. Spencer and I winced and I ran into the garage to get a tool --something sharp and metal to pry the latch with. I always look for something metal to hold while I'm standing outside in a thunderstorm.
The latch wouldn't budge. I held the phone in one hand and pried at the metal latch with the other. Then the tornado sirens began to whine.
I handed the phone to Spencer. The car was parked behind the garage which slants down toward the alley. The driver's side was on the downhill so the unlatched door was hanging open blocking the way of other cars that might come down the alley.
"I'm going to turn the car around so the door isn't in the alley," I told Spencer. Make sure the door doesn't hit the garage."
He stood next to the garage as I began maneuvering the car.
A tan canvas umbrella that usually shades our neighbor's outdoor table came soaring over her wrought iron fence and landed in the alley.
"Grab the umbrella," I called to Spencer through the open door; the tornado sirens continued to screech.
I saw Spencer struggle with the umbrella and the neighbor joined him while I turned the car into a partial driveway and backed out then pulled forward and backed out, holding onto the car door the whole time.
I pulled the car in behind the garage and the slant kept the driver-side door closed.
"Go to the basement," I told Spencer while I exchanged dire storm warnings with the neighbor.
After huddling in the basement for half an hour and watching on TV as the pink, red, yellow and orange colored radar passed the city, we came back upstairs to a little rain and a few sticks in the yard.
September is not supposed to be tornado season. Tornado season stretches through the spring and June. Two tornado warnings in a week as we enter autumn must mean that something is up with the weather.
If it weren't so beautiful and thrilling, I'd be tired of it.

Joys of Motherhood

My kids can be so annoying and so funny. That really hasn't changed much since they were little.
Spencer is trying to redeem himself after his run-in with the law by volunteering at a basketball camp this week.
"It's horrible," he moans. He's coaching the third and fourth graders.
"Horrible for you or for the kids?" I ask on the drive there this morning.
"Both," he says.
Apparently the kids don't listen and just run amok. I had advised him to be firm with them, but this apparently hasn't helped.
"Just try to make a difference for one kid," I advise this morning as he gets out of the car.
"I do," he says. "I give them fun nicknames, like Slick Rick."
Then he loped across the field, all six-foot, three-inches of him. Making a difference, one nickname at a time.
All three of my children were home last night, which is unusual. One or all of them are generally "hanging out" with their friends somewhere in our small town. But following a day of swim practices and basketball scrimmages, they were all fairly lethargic.
About 11 p.m., I heard a sound outside and thought I saw movement. I pulled aside the curtains and saw the wind was whipping through the trees. I heard a rumble of thunder and saw a flash of light. Thunderstorm.
Then I remembered the convertible.
"Grace," I called to her. "Did you put the top up on the car?"
She hadn't.
"Come on," I yelled. "Thunderstorm."
The convertible top motor has given out. It won't put the top up or down. And, since it's heavy, it takes two people to put the top up.
We ran through the dark down the alley to the street where the car was parked.
"I'll work from the outside. You start the car," Grace yelled above the wind, flinching as thunder boomed again.
I started the car and tried the button that puts the top up. Nothing. Grace was tugging and pulling on the top.
I got out of the car and grabbed the other side. We pulled up then pushed it forward before I hopped the car to finish the job. Then we sprinted to the house again, with only a small scream from Grace when the lightning flashed again.
Never a dull minute at my house.

Turbulent Run

Today is Memorial Day in the United States. That's a day when we're supposed to honor people who served in the military, but mostly we have cook outs and sales in stores.
I slept in (for me) and got up to read the newspaper on the front porch. Then I dressed for my morning run. The wind had picked up a little by then and the leaves were whispering as if they were already falling raindrops. I shook Earl awake and asked if he'd put the top up on the convertible. It's a two-person job now that the motor has burned out on the convertible top. He said he had and rolled over to go back to sleep.
I headed out into the humid morning to enjoy the breezes sweeping along. I'd run more than a mile and a half before the first raindrops struck me. I'd been hearing a sound that could have been far away thunder or might have been an airplane or loud truck. Who was I to judge?
I was just coming out of a cul de sac that I run for an extra half mile when the sky opened and the rain fell in torrents. Still, a little rain is no big deal. I'd worn my running cap and it kept the rain off my face.
Then from behind me, a loud boom made me jump. The thunder, followed by a streak of lightning, was so loud and close that it set off car alarms. I paused, wondering what to do. Should I move onto the sidewalk and stay under the trees? I know, I know, I should never stand under a tree during a thunder storm, but I didn't want to run in the middle of the road away from the trees either.
There were a couple of friends' houses not too far away. The one who was closest would still be asleep. The other was three blocks away, and she might be awake. If not, she had a large front porch that could shelter me.
I started to sprint (for me) running hard down the sidewalk. The safety of my friend's porch was within three blocks. After two blocks of sprinting, I could feel my heart pounding. I was going to have to slow down or walk, I thought. Another bolt of lightning followed by booming thunder urged me to keep going. And I thought about the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie I'd watched the night before when he was ready to give up underwater and gave one last blast to pull himself to the surface. "Ascendio!" I shouted in my head and I made my legs keep pumping.
I reached the porch and peered in the doorway. Anne had just gotten up. Wearing a pink sleep shirt, she let me in and gave me a towel.
I was still about a mile from home. My slumbering husband was rousted from bed to fetch me, and he grumbled about it all the way home through the standing water on the road and the claps of thunder above.