Today isn’t going to be easy.

I was following the tornado coverage already when the EF4 tornado that eventually tracked through Moore first spun up. I knew it was going to be bad when I heard it had grown to a mile wide, with a debris ball two miles wide. Then I heard it was tracking towards a high school and things got worse. Later, as I was getting ready to head home, the news broke that two elementary schools had taken a direct hit.

In that moment, I felt like I became every mom in the Moore community.

I knew that my kids were okay, I knew that we were nowhere near that weather system, but I was not okay. It felt like it could be my kids. We live in tornado alley: it could happen to my kids. It could be my kids who were bussed out and maybe trapped in traffic or pelted by debris. It could be my kids who were the third-graders trapped in the rubble. For me, being a mom has become universal; I feel like everyone’s kids are my kids. I cried when I heard about Newtown, I cried when I heard about the eight-year-old boy killed watching his dad run the Boston Marathon, and I broke down again last night when I heard as many as two dozen children might have died at school during the tornado. Can you imagine, as a parent, knowing the tornado hit your child’s school and not being able to get there? Or getting there and not being able to find your child? While hearing all of the speculation the media was broadcasting? The problem is that I can imagine it. Probably more than is healthy for me.

To make today even more challenging, today’s weather forecast for my area calls for severe storms this afternoon. They say the tornado threat is low (and, to be fair, yesterday’s tornado threat for the Oklahoma City area was very high), but I’m still practically jumping out of my skin. I asked the girls last night what they do if the tornado sirens go off. (The elementary school that was decimated yesterday had a basement, and still several students died. Our school does not have a basement.) Gracie’s class huddles in the computer room because their classroom has windows. Bee’s class moves from their portable into the hallway of the main building. I gave Bee a head’s up – Gracie’s teacher, a family friend, had promised me that she would fetch Bee and bring her to wherever Gracie was sheltering. If anything happens, I at least want my girls to be together. Not scared and alone. Although I didn’t mention that part to them – just that Ms. G. would make sure they were together. I don’t care if I’m being morbid or dramatic – I am giving myself permission to feel all my feelings today, so long as the kids have no idea.

So! To recap! Today is going to be difficult. Crazy difficult. Crazy with grief for the parents in Moore. And crazy-dramatic with what I’m sure are overreactions to everything going on down here in North Texas. But, hey, at least I still get to be Crazy, With Children. My kids might remember this week as The Week We Did Fun Stuff Every Night After School, but at least that’s a good kind of crazy, right?

Hunker down and eat cupcakes.

My sisters, who live in the (northern) backwoods of Connecticut, decided to evac to northern New Hampshire, rather than risk losing life, limbs, and electricity. They arrived safely last night and texted some pics from their new digs:

That would be Rhianyn there, hiding behind the laptop.

Kim briefly considered evacking to Tejas because tix were less than $200 roundtrip if she came down on Saturday, but we were at a loss of what to do with the kitty.

Friedrich is camped out in New Hampshire, too. If, by camped out, you really mean “running around and finding alllll the places (ALLLLL THE PLACES!) where he can hide.” So far, that list includes under the bed, between the couch and the wall, behind the curtains, and on the chair under the desk. I suggested to Kim that he was playing Hide & Seek In The Dark, With A Very Special Guest Star! Of course he is.

Not pictured is all the food crammed into the car for the trip, including the 2-for-1 packages of Hostess Cuppacakes.

You CANNOT disaster-prep without cuppacakes. It’s a rule of the universe and general known order of things. Or, um, something.

So far the ladies only have light rain in their area, while Connecticut has an additional 6 feet of tidal surge above what was predicted, is closing roads at 1 p.m., and has started shutting down electricity along the coast. Not as bad as New Jersey and NYC, but still – sounds like getting the heck out of dodge was the right call.

Juju I should have conjured.

I’m happy to say that we were not blown away by any tornadoes last night. Not a one. I started worrying when our Tor:Con went from 7 to mysteriously missing and back to 6. I worried more when our favorite storm chaser, Reed Timmer, ::cough:: calmly suggested that the metroplex have an action plan in place for the afternoon BECAUSE WE WERE ALL GOING TO DIE. And I worried a tinge bit more when the winds before the front were so wicked that pieces of my roof started blowing off and going flippity-flappity before the storms even moved with counties of us. So I moved the spare mattress into the closet, made sure my laptop, camera, and phone were all charged and waited. Of course there was no tornado.

Instead, we’re all going to float away in the flood. Because we have a flood warning and the river is going to sweep away my entire county. Holla!

This morning as I was trying to think of what I could do while I dashed to get ready for work and school (which curiously were not cancelled), I wondered if I even had flood insurance. Hmm…maybe I should have checked on that while they were warning about the epic storm.

I wondered if I should have tied some little water wings to the side of my house. You know – kinda like the juju of moving the mattress: you do it, and it will not come.

Moving from one inflatable to another, I thought about maybe buying one of those little blow up boats. Nothing professional, of course – that would be ridiculous! – but maybe the kind that you see in pools. Just something to keep us afloat and away from the alligators. (“We’re all float down here.” Okay, and maybe away from the man-eating clowns, too.)

The computer is shelved pretty high up, but the modem and the other…switchy things…were still on the floor. Perhaps I should move them? But their cords are tethered pretty tightly. Screw it – I’ll just rescue my CPU later.

I did wedge a kitchen chair under the door handle to the back door: the winds were gusting to 70 mph and I was seriously afraid the door was going to blow in, given how much it was moving in the door jamb. Maybe if I had’ve put some towels near the lips of the doors, the juju could have held out the river.

And I’m definitely signing the girls up for swimming lessons. (Great. Now I have Tool’s “Learn to Swim” stuck in my head.)

Someone’s going to say that all the juju in the world won’t matter, but it keeps my crazy, crazy mind a little distracted from the worrying and the utter lack of control. Juju and baking. And the only reason I am not enjoying  something very tasty and time-consuming for breakfast is that I was doing everything I could to keep the power on last night. That’s worked (so far), so maybe the flood juju will too. But just in cases, send towels.

 

This is what happens when you encourage thinking outside the box.

I change my mind. I do have a favorite. And it’s Bee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It all sounds like pretty talk when it’s all theoretical, but then you throw Halloween costumes into the mix and…well, there you go. Bee clearly loves me more and wants to keep my mind intact, so PONIES FOR BEE!

Ahem, er, so we started talking about Halloween costumes this weekend while I was dying of The Plague, Revisited. In between admonitions of “Please <cough> stop <sneeze> arguing!” and distractions of “Why don’t you <cough, wheeze> go eat some plague cake?” I thought it would be just the right time to ask my darlings if they had settled on what they wanted to be for Halloween. That’s when Bee declared she was still madly in love with fairies (and her mama) and so instantly declared, “Duh…Tinkerbell.” She has pretty much wanted to be Tinkerbell since the day after Halloween last year. Stubborn or decisive or sanity-saving – you decide.

Gracie, on the other hand. Oh, Gracie, Gracie, Gracie. She used to want to be a punk rocker. How much fun that would have been! Dazzlingly sparkly 80s clothes…funky cowgirl boots…denim short skirt and funky leggings…hair spiked, teased, and dyed different colors. I already bought AquaNet, people! It was going to be So! Much! Fun!! And then Gracie decided to play “Possessed” to her sister’s “Blessed” and told me that she wanted instead to be for Halloween a….tornado.

A…tornado?

See, this is what I get for letting her watch Stormchasers reruns with me. A tornado. Okay – how exactly am I going to do that? “Gracie, I don’t know if I could do that. Even if we dress you in grey leggings and a gray turtleneck [or t-shirt, more likely, since we live practically on top of the freakin' equator], and maybe have streamers coming off of you, I don’t know if anyone will know who you are.”

“That’s okay! We can get rocks and grass and glue it to my outfit!”

“Yeah, even if you spin up to the doorway and I occasionally throw a cow past you, I don’t know if people will know what you are.” Heh. And maybe I should play the soundtrack to Twister in the back ground. Or yell, “It’s blowin’ up!” like Reed does in Stormchasers. Or glue a Discovery Channel logo (or The Weather Channel) logo to her shin. Or, hey!, maybe I can convince Bee to be a witch and they can sing the Witch’s Theme from The Wizard of Oz when they ring the doorbell. Yeah, right, there’s no way Bee’s changing her mind.

Nope, there’s no changing Gracie’s mind either. She wants to be a tornado. I’m hoping once the stores put out the hair spray/dye, she’ll get all distracted by the shiny and change her mind. Until then, I think my weekends between now and Halloween are booked trying to figure out how the heck to my daughter into a tornado without bringing along pictures of her room to prove it.

And the rain, rain, rain came down, down, down…

Thankfully, where my family is, it appears that rain was the only part of Hurricane Irene that really impacted them much. Roads are flood and most impassable. My sister’s town – along with the rest of Connecticut – is still without power, but my parents’ house  never lost electricity. [Thank goodness, because my parents pretty much watch TV and grump around. My brother maaaaaaaybe joked around about medicating everyone into good behavior if they lost electricity, but let's just say I'm glad we never found out how much truth lay in the statement.]

My baby sister and Kim’s cat, Friedrich, (whom Rhi evac-ed to safety) are still hunkered down in Mass. It will be interesting to see how many trees are down as she makes her way down Route 84 and into the backwoods of Connecticut. I wonder how many trees will be down and how many times she’ll have to turn around. Even more interesting – I wonder if she will be able to find Friedrich who may ignore the jangle of his leash in favor of all! the! bugs! he can kill at my parents’. It’s like Friedrich-heaven, I’m sure. Well, except maybe not quite as morose. Maybe more like a Friedrich-amusement park? Yes, that’s more apt, methinks.

I’m glad everyone is safe, even if I am jealous of all that rain. The sky sprinkled on me for five minutes on the way into work and you would have thought it was Christmas from the way everyone was shouting and laughing in their cars. I have never seen such joyful Monday-morning commuter traffic, let me tell ya. It almost made me forget that someone stole my hurricane. Maybe if I am very, very good, one of those systems brewing in the Atlantic will make its way through the gulf and shower us with a few days of rain. Possible back-up plans include raindancing, stealing Kim’s friend from Philly who lost his house and all his worldly possessions in Hurricane Katrina and was just slammed with flooding from Irene, and…well…I haven’t really come up with Plan C yet.

So! To recap! Family and friends on the East Coast: water-logged, but safe. Texas: Still scorching hot and drought-ier than you can imagine. I have the glimmer of a Plan C forming in my mind, but it involves duct taping drinking straws together to create the world’s longest rain gutter…

Friedrich the Great and Uncle Joey watching Irene float by...

Hurricane party, Casa de Katie-style.

Technically, there are no parties yet. But there has been much watching of The Weather Channel, lurving on Jim Cantore, and general mocking of everyone but the Weather Gods. (Hey, they’re pretty much smoting us already – no reason to further incite their fury.)

So, anyone want to guess when Auntie Kim was supposed to leave me? Sunday morning? Ding ding ding! And anyone want to guess when Hurricane Irene is supposed to pass directly over Kim’s house? Why yes! Just when she’s flying into Boston Logan and driving to Connecticut! Yeah, so not happening. In fact, her crazysilly airline is telling her she’ll be lucky to make it back before next weekend. Heh. Silly hurricane. Silly airline. But hooray for me and another week of homemade dinners!

So, while Kim and I live it up and try not to kill the children, our baby sister has been trying to batten down the (rented) hatches of her and Kim’s places before evac-ing to our parents house further inland in good ol’ Massachusetts. This has made for some very interesting convos. Rhi hasn’t lived on her own before and is still learning to juggle everyday life, never mind hurricane prep. Could she prep for a blizzard? Heck yeah! Hurricanes? For a New Englandah? Mehhhh - a little bit sketchier territory. But that doesn’t mean we’re not gonna laugh our way through it.

Rhi: Hey, ask Kim if 6 gallons of water is too much.
[This made me crack up because 6 gallons was exactly the number I had randomly told Kim Rhi should get if she was staying in Connecticut. Apparently telepathy isn't a feature uniquely shared between Kim and I.]
Me: Ha! That’s how much I suggested for just you. I’d get 10 for the 4 of you. [Since she's going to our parents. Plus the cat she's taking with her. Whole. other. story.]
Rhi: kk, I’ll get some more. I asked Joey to get some and he’s like ‘Meh, it’s a regular storm.’ [Apparently, our brother is CRAZY, yo.] I also got some cereal, peanut butter, bagels…anything else?
Me: Bread, Kim says you needed more kitty litter. Meds? Benadryl or ibuprofen? Batteries. Pop tarts! lol
[The Weather Channel had a "special" on about how Walmart says the biggest sellers before hurricanes are beer and pop tarts.]
Rhi: Cart….getting…heavy. Huuuughhhughhhh.
Me: Kim wants to know if you’re speaking whale. [All the parents in the room know that's from Finding Nemo. Duh.] Not that she wants you to see one! [Me to Kim: But how cool would that be?! A whale washed up inland afterwards! Kim: Ew.]
Rhi: Uh. No. It was my pushing-heavy-cart noise…Duh. Should I get apples? They float.
Me: Yes! And string.
Rhi: That’s donuts, not apples.
[Which is when Kim explained that Rhi obviously thought we meant for party games. You know. Hung from strings.]
Me: You’re supposed to tie the apples into a flotilla and then you’ll be on CNN, not play party games!

And that was the last I heard from Rhi. So, either the cart rolled over and killed her (Ohmygod! You killed Kenny Rhianyn!) or she beat up some lil old grandma waiting in line and is now in lockup, or quite possibly lost the thread of our conversation and gave up.

Rhi wasn’t the only one we were harassing. Kim talked to the dad of one of her friends online; he had been teasing her for stalking The Weather Channel from Texas – like it was gonna do any good. (The talking or the teasing, nat.) He also told her he was having a Hurricane Sale – he owns a liquor store in backwoods PerfectTown, Connecticut – and Kim asked him if he had a pop tarts display up, too. He replied he didn’t, but that there was one next door at the supermarket. We might have suggested he go steal it. You know, or we would have if that wasn’t criminal. Ahem.

Even The Weather Channel hasn’t been beyond our mockery. From the beginning, their coverage included a map that showed the threat potential to the northeast. Most of New York and Connecticut was listed as High Threat (in a nice, neat red). But The Weather Channel people were going on and on about how they had added an extra category: Extreme. (Go ahead and guess what category Kim’s house in listed under now. Go ahead – guess.) But wait! There’s more! There was another category that was called CATASTROPHIC.

This graphic was created by the very nice folks over at The Weather Channel. I had nothing to do with making its pretty little self, only linking over to it.

Why, oh why, Kim asked, would they call it that?! That’s when we suggested that they add another color in black called “PANIC! Panic at the disco!” They could add glitter to the black, even. Then we discussed how Rhi probably has glitter in her hurricane kit; to her, everything’s better with glitter.

So there you have it, folks. Come Saturday, I imagine we’ll be glued to the TV and our phones, making sure our parents and friends and everyone is okay. Hopefully it’ll be a whole bunch of nothing. A few downed limbs. Quickly restore electricity. And if not, well, Kim can just skype the college courses she’s teaching and live at my house.

(P.S. No, Kim, I did not conjure this mighty, mighty hurricane in an evil plot to keep you here. OBVIOUSLY, I would have directed the rain a little closer my way. That would have been just as effective AND more fun!)

There’s something to be said about New England summers.

I knew I was going to want to make out with the overly mild summer temperatures before I left for vacation, but… Nah, no buts: I wanted to make out with it. In fact, I still do. I wanted to drunk-call those summer temps last night at 1 a.m. and beg them to come over for a little while. They were that nice.

I had forgotten just how divinely lovely they are. I thought I had remembered; I packed a pair of jeans for each of us, a pair of yoga pants to sleep in, and some sweat pants for the girls. We used those jeans every single morning. Most days we changed into shorts by lunch when the temps had finally climbed out of the 60s and – maybe – into the low 80s. We never used the long-sleeved shirts I packed, but we practically wore out the hoodies we brought. The girls would parade out the door in them, use them for a pillow in Auntie Kim’s car during the hour-long drive to Grandma’s house, ditch them for the day, and then use them as blankets for the ride home.

We don’t have crisp summer mornings here. The only extra shirt you reach for here in hell Tejas is to change out the tshirt you’ve already sweated through by 9 a.m. I miss the feeling of almost-cold that lingers in the morning. It makes your coffee taste sweeter. It makes the warmth of sunshine on your face later in the day feel even more summery. That crispness makes each morning feel like a do-over from the day before. I think I feel as much homesickness for summer weather as I do for mi familia. Certainly as much as I do for the places in my hometown near and dear to my heart.

It’s going to be 109° today. A limp, soggy, soul-crushing, a/c blastworthy day. Just like all the others here, 1500 miles and a world away from New England.

Shoosh – it’s a sign.

I thought the clouds looked a prettier, darker, shade of blue this morning. Overcast skies are always a welcome relief from driving due east into the blinding sunrise every morning, but these skies…these looked like almost rainlike.

Or so I thought. I was guessing, since it hasn’t rained in over a month.

And then, oh my goodness. I heard office doors opening to the parking lot, the few people who are here that early were shouting down the hall. RAIN! Friends called on the phone (suddenly awake at ungodly hours), my text alerts suddenly started trilling, every single person at the PlaceThatShallNotBeDiscussed was standing at an outside door, marvelling at that wet stuff falling from the sky. I even went outside to play in it. (Don’t you love the coppery penny smell when summer rain first falls?)

It’s been 25 straight days of 100+ heat. Today’s high – without the heat index – is 105°. I don’t think we would have been more excited if someone had shouted that it was snowing.

Today – today is going to be a good, good day.

When it rains, it pours (and hails, and tornadoes).

I learned something new about tornado alley last night – like, apparently it runs right behind my house.  Here are some other things I learned last night, by the numbers style (see first item):

Hours of sleep I got last night: 6

Number of tornadoes we had at my house: 4

Number of times the sirens went off: 8

Times I saw the kiddie pool fly by my window: 3

Sizes of hail I saw: 6 (pea, marble, quarter, half-dollar, golf ball and, yes, baseball)

Number of times I screamed: 1 (When a hailstone roughly the size of a frickin cat hit my bedroom window)

Windows actually broken: 0 Thank. god.

Number of tornadoes I saw out my window: 1 (Kim: Why aren’t you in the closet?! Me: It’s moving east! Kim: Which way is east?! Me: Away! Away from us!)

Hours Kim (and Rhi, by proxy) spent on the phone with me: 3  She’s the best, yo.

Number of times I heard my street on the news: 6

Because there was a tornado directly overhead: 2

That was confirmed by spotters: 1

Number of times Fox broke out of Idol coverage to tell us we were going to die: 0  I am. not. amused.

Hours girls spent in the closet: 2ish

Number of cheesesticks provided: 2 each, also 2 Mini Bell cheese wheels, and an entire bag of goldfish crackers.

Number of times I yelled at the girls to stop messing with the flashlights or the batteries wouldn’t work: 10,938

Times Bee asked if skeletons were going to come in the house: 1  (Uh…esplain, Lucy.)

Number of times I thought I heard the weather guy say “nipple-sized” instead of “nickel-sized” hail: 1  (But really, how can you un-hear something like that?! Almost worth the whole experience.)

Minutes I was late to work this morning because my car window broke: 20.  The uppity-down motor for the window went out, unrelated to storm damage.

Dollars that will likely cost: $400.

Amount I really care about it right now: 0

Because I am alive, the girls are okay and the house is undamaged….although we have no cheese.

Avert your eyes!

Dear Kim:

You are pretty. And lovely. And full of useful things to know, like words and math and stuff. Also, please don’t look at my 10-day forecast. I know we said we weren’t mocking, talking about, thinking of, or otherwise having anything to do with weather for fear the Weather Gods would notice. But – just don’t look at my 10-day forecast.

Love,
me