Frabjous Mother's Day

Frabjous Mother's Day

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Texas Tornado

I wished for a rainstorm while I was here. I got my wish and then some. You can blame it all on me. Last night while we were over visiting a friend, the wind started to pick up. Then it took off. The sky turned the most peculiar shade of fuzzy gray green. The air got thick and swirly, almost as if some giant hand had stirred the cream in the coffee. It was very surreal and other world looking. My daughter and I were fascinated. "WOWWW, Mom!"

In the beginning of the storm we were all out in the back yard acting out various scenes from The Wizard of Oz and singing our version of “Thunder and lightning, very, very frightening…”
The television was on in the house and the rainbow coloured emergency warning screen interrupted the show that was on. I thought they were teasing us when they said that it was for real at first until I looked outside and then looked at the screen again. It was a Texas Tornado.

The storm passed through after a few hours, or so we thought. The tornado had passed with some damage in its wake, a semi thrown on its side, trees and fences down, flooding in the stadium, various storm destruction here and there throughout the DFW area.

We ordered pizza after the front had moved through but the winds were still going and the rain was coming down. They delivered it. S had wanted to order it in the middle of the tornado to see if they would deliver or not. I told her this is not the United States Postal service, “through rain and snow and sleet and hail”. Pizza doesn't qualify for important delivery, no matter how hungry all of us are.

Then the fun began. The torrential storms kicked in. The rain was coming down in fountains and driving against the windows. The lightning lit up the room repeatedly all night long. The thunder would build in increasing crescendos until it set the neighbor’s car alarm off and has been repeating all night and all day. I am seriously considering going over and ripping his car alarm out. The crashing booming from the storm I love, love, love. It is invigorating. It is alive. The car alarm is an invention I wish had never popped into somebody’s head with that light bulb flash of creative ingenuity. I hate the things with a passion. People get them installed,then everyone ignores them going off, including the person whose car they are installed in. I am almost convinced they were invented to drive me bonkers.

That was last night and the storm is still going strong. The road in front of L A’s parent’s house is flooded. Her mom figured she would go work in the garage since she couldn’t go outside today in all this lightning and downpour. She turned right around and rushed back in to the house again when the lightning hit the garage door with a loud boom.

My daughter huddled close to me all night, gripping on to me with a death grip. I wrapped my arms around her. Storms frighten her. But by this morning she was sitting at the computer having a grand time, an old storm pro. It was that or hang on to Mommy all day like she did all night. I haven’t been in a storm like this in years.

There is enough water out front to float my brother’s old toy oil liner. It was a model someone gave him about two feet long. I loved it when the gutters and roads got so full of water that we could run it and a collection of paper and plastic boats. My boat was a little multi-coloured, plastic molded beauty about 8” long, the really cheap toy dime store/toy store kind that in my child’s vision was beautiful, a sea worthy craft that could have taken on the North Sea in a winter storm. Remove the lightening and I would be out there now with our boats if I still had them. I am sorely tempted to walk out there in my bare feet and splash around. Maybe I could take an umbrella and pretend to be Gene Kelly hoofing around, "Just singing and dancing…in the (Texas), rain.”

1 comment:

Angel said...

I'm glad all of y'all are ok. Hope nobody got hurt in the storm. I don't like tornado's. As you know, rain isn't my friend either...lol.