Warning: Whining

Yeah, like that's a big surprise. However, if you find yourself to be tired/annoyed/disgusted/bored by my recent riffs on Mother Nature and her peccadilloes, you might just want to go ahead and click "Next Blog" in your reader right now and just get it over with. Consider yourself duly warned...

We've had quite a lot of weather all week, and it has been annoying. Monday night I had the bright idea that some of my husband's compatriots, being assembled in town for a training meeting, should come experience the Southern household around the dinner hour. Good sound reasoning - these are folks he doesn't get to be around very often, and it's just smart to get to know each other in a relaxed and personable atmosphere so the next time somebody fires off an email, if it isn't one hundred percent clear (or tactful) you have enough understanding of the person's... well, persona, in order to realize that hiring an assassin probably is not only not necessary, but, well, reaching into overreaction territory. Unfortunately, being the introverted and indolent person that I am, providing the "relaxed and personable atmosphere" can fall a little on the "not-so-much-fun" side of things (although I worked diligently on my outlook to try to circumvent the whining, and was largely successful in the greater scheme of things, despite the moment an hour before arrival time when I discovered I had planned for a total of four guys and that number had been quietly extended to seven... ). Some extra beer, and a few additional steaks, and we were good to go again. After all, they could do their thing on the deck and it wouldn't matter that I only have 4 chairs around my table inside, LOL.

Except for the whole "weather" thing. Of course it rained. And was chilly. And while in the larger picture this didn't matter a whole lot, and that bonding occurred in spite of (and perhaps because of) shivering and standing and borrowing jackets. It was all good.

On Wednesdays, in the summer, when my husband is in town and free, he goes across the city to the drag strip and participates in "Test and Tune," an opportunity to practice his starts and timing and all that other stuff I don't really fully understand about drag racing (I get the first part, the "drag" part). I get an email message entitled "Drag Raining." Yeah. More clouds, more rain, more interruptions.... it's just par for the week's course. Annoying, but meh.

Yesterday, shortly after the dog and I scrounged through the fridge for some of Monday's leftovers for lunch (ok, I scrounged, but the dog was very definitely interested), I became aware of the fact that not only was it cloudy, but, it was CLOUDY. As in, somebody shut off some of the lights cloudy. Yikes. About the same time I noticed, it began to precipitate with a vengeance, and the next thing I knew, Angus was pretty much wrapped around my feet in panic, because, well, hail the size of a quarter beating down upon one's house is REALLY REALLY LOUD. At that time I remembered that supposedly there had been a tornado sighting earlier in the week (I maybe should start paying attention to the weather reports?) and we hoofed it to the basement to hang out til the noise stopped, and/or we ended up in OZ.

Once the deafening roar stopped, we came upstairs to a) check windows, and b) take pictures. Because it's kinda cool when there's a drift up against your back sliding glass window in June. I opened the front door to get a picture of the street being all white, and the smell was amazing... bruised trees smell wonderful, poor things. And after a nice round of photos, I went back to work at my computer, because one just doesn't waste mojo, particularly when it has been scarce and capricious, and I really didn't give much more thought to the event of the afternoon.

So when my husband came in the front door after his meeting, went straight to his office (no kiss, no greeting, no passing Go and collecting $200) and called the insurance company, it was a shove into a teensy bit of reality that I had overlooked. Oh yeah. Just because you don't end up in Oz (or even Kansas) doesn't mean that the roof is happy, or the hot tub cover, or the vinyl cladding on your sliding glass door...

I'm not even going to revisit my previous bloggery about blizzards in June... no more bright ideas for Mrs. Nature, Ma'am. Just respect.