"Is that...a dragon?"

I have this bedtime ritual of going to pee, then laying in bed and playing Scrabble on my cellphone until I can't keep my eyes open anymore, going to pee again, and then crashing for the night. It's a little bit funny (this feeling insiiiiide...) to me because I always "graciously" point out how certain people I know practically have their cells plastered to their faces, and most nights I can't fall asleep without having some Scrabble time. I guess that's not really the same thing as always being on a call or falling into a ditch you didn't see because of constant texting... but still. It's like the one thing that I really, really love my phone for. Well, not the ONLY thing, but it's MY thing. Why did I open with this? Right, because last night I tried to go to bed without playing Scrabble. And instead of tossing and turning and thinking about nonsense, I started to write a new post for this blog in my head. Of course, by the morning I had completely blocked out the inner-monologue, and then by the time I remembered I had done so, I completely forgot anything I was going to say. Hence, this ridiculous introduction.

I get the day's weather text messaged to my cellphone from, I believe, the weather channel? And I also signed up for severe weather alerts. Every morning (actually, NOT every morning, which always boggles my mind when it skips a day) I get the "morning, night and tomorrow" forecasts, usually followed by a separate text for the next day's high and low temps, including the percentage or precipitation. Great. Fantastic. Except any kind of prediction of weather is usually wrong. I know this, and knew this previously, so oh well. But the thing that always gets to me is when I get an alert. It almost ALWAYS over-reacts and sends me the same exact message 30 times in 20 minutes (fact... I counted). Or the first one will say something like "A Flash Flood warning has been issued" followed by 16 more that say "A Flash Flood warning update has been issued." Thank you. And the update is?? Not once has it told me the update. And why must it arrive in my inbox 16 more times? I eventually just created a folder in my messages just for the weather texts. I don't mind enough to cancel it (or is it that I don't remember where I even signed up for them, hmm...) because in a way, it's one of the rare constants in my life. (Wow, that's sad.) And I do have to counter this rant with another factual story in all fairness...

I was in a different state, though only about an hour, hour and a half away from home, and I got an alert saying a tornado warning had been issued for the town in which I live. I more or less brushed it off to it being Spring and went about my business. Then I got at least 5 more straight away. So, I rang my folks and they confirmed the bad weather that was quickly approaching, and I asked them to head to my place and bring my cat downstairs if an F-anything touched down. A little more time passed and I got alert after alert after alert. I mentioned it to the people I was with and they started calling home. It was bad everywhere. Tornadoes had been sighted. So I try to reach my folks again. I can't get them on their house line, their cells, or at my house. Panic strikes and I'm trying to avoid thinking about the Wizard of Oz and hoping my cat lives through whatever is going on back at home. Maybe 30 minutes later I get in touch with them and they were at my house, in the basement, with my cat. A little while later I was outside with someone and the storms that had just left our hometown were now steadily creeping up on where we were at that time. The lightening was incredible. Every second it seemed -- in fact, I think there was some record set by how many strikes per minute, and it was some insane number in the 100s. The wind was making it rain sideways and the thunder shook you so deeply you could swear you heard your bones rattle. When we finally departed for home, the flooding was so bad it made some roads impassable. We had no choice but to trudge through a few and if I had opened the door, gross black water would have poured in. And we were in a van. Exiting off the expressway back in town, the road we exited onto was closed because the power was out for miles. It was a little unsettling to come home to a pitch black town. It was like everything was wiped out completely, leaving only a dark nothingness. The damage was thankfully less than expected, but still pretty bad in some areas. Upon returning home I found that I had power (which is unusual for my side of the street) and my cat still had all 9 lives. On a side note: I love how if you call Com Ed to report a power outage, one of the first things the automated voice says is to "visit their website." Douche bag. I have no power.

Well, that was pretty tame for a good anecdote. I guess I should be thankful for the days that don't inspire anything more crass. I leave you with a bit from a hysterical cartoon that I stayed up an extra 30 minutes to watch last night, not knowing that with the new HDTV (progress my ass! There's a topic for a good thwarting!) there is a a whole channel devoted to the programs usually shown along with this cartoon.

Jester: "So learn from the boy with bells on his hat and magic in his shoes."
Dragon: "And fire in his fair if I lose count again!"

Union Jane xxoo