Not Quite Dorothy

As MathMan already pointed out, yesterday was a bit of an adventure for us.

It's true what they say, it's only until you don't have something anymore that you realize just how important it is to you.

Unlike a few in our community, we still have our house, our lives and our loved ones. We were lucky that with a tornado passing a scant mile from our house, we didn't even have to go out and collect the bird feeders or right overturned lawn furniture. The wind was surprisingly fickle. For what felt like once in our lives, we got really, really lucky.

The only thing that we don't have is power. And we don't know yet when we can expect to have it back. Apparently some big routing towers connected to Mountjoy's favorite power plant Plant Bowen were damaged and so we are hurtled back into pre-electricity ages.

Know what? It blows. Or sucks. But in the grand scheme? Minor. Even so, it's a bit too Little House on the Prairie for me. Reading my candlelight or flashlight isn't quite my thing.

Right now, we're sitting in Cartersville, Georgia at the local coffee shop Jittery Joe's so that we can use their wi-fi. We're grateful for that because Cartersville, Georgia is pretty dead on Sundays so we feel lucky to find a place to hang and nosh and plug in our computers.

I should be doing paid work that I intended to do yesterday, but didn't quite get to. It's funny how those best laid plans can get screwed up. One minute I'm sitting at my computer designing the masthead for my new blog and the next minute I'm standing in the basement, looking out the door and jockeying with MathMan for a place at the window to see what's going on.

When I said goodbye to The Dancer a half hour earlier, it never occurred to me that I'd be wondering if she and the other dancers who were sheltered under the stairs of the studio, would be okay. Thank goodness for cellphones and texting. We were able to keep her apprised of the situation and to relay to her what was going on out our way so that she wouldn't get in her car and drive right into the storm.

MathMan and I stood in silence, having just shushed The Actor and Resident Evil (aka Cupcake) so that we could listen to what sounded like continuous, low, rumbling thunder. We sensed that we were hearing a tornado. We searched the skies for the telltale funnel cloud but couldn't see one. As the sounds of the tornado grew louder, I worried that the damn thing was coming straight at us from the west and we have no west facing windows in this whole house.



A wall of dark greenish clouds passed over the ridge in front of our house. You could see it approaching through the woods, but I didn't think to look up to see if the clouds were swirling in a funnel. I was mesmerized by the creeping darkness. Then the sound rumbled by and was gone.


Later as we drove The Actor to a birthday party, we saw the damage that the storm had delivered to the area. A mile away from us, trees were uprooted and snapped off, houses were missing pieces of their roofs and a couple of barns and garages had collapsed. The Pavilion at Cupcake's school was reduced to kindling and metal siding and someone's lawn furniture was blown up against the school's front fence. All over the place, tall pines were splintered and bent.

Thanks to all who've expressed their concern. We're all in one piece and petty enough to be grousing about the things we can't have without power. Obviously, we're without our computers. And the tv, electronic games, CDs, the stove, heat, hot water and lights, MathMan has had to rig the garage doors so we can open and close the. So dependent!!!!

And thanks to susan, who held down the fort here yesterday. She did a great job with her first post and I'm grateful that she posted to let readers know what was happening with us.

You don't realize just how addicted to falling asleep to the television you are until you try to fall asleep to the silence and stillness of night lit only by the moonlight. But these inconveniences are short-lived. The laundry will still be there - in greater piles, of course, and the dishwasher will run and the food that we have to toss from the fridge can be replaced. We'll eventually take hot showers again and I might even cook again someday.


Naturally, The Spawn are trying to figure out how to parlay this into time off school tomorrow. Obviously all those days off sick with the flu weren't enough. (They'll go to school even if I have to load up the wagon, hitch the horses and haul them there myself.) We've each made the same horrid "joke" about our sick desire to see the elementary school principal's ruby slippered feet sticking out from under the collapsed Pavilion.

It's sobering, though, to think that we could be like some of neighbors who have to figure out where to sleep and how to begin to collect their personal items that are strewn about. Considering their troubles, we realize just how minute our woes are.