Send in the Psychologists.......

I'm sitting here at my desk with a ball of carrots, celery and potatoes stuck midway between my mouth and stomach. It's not a good feeling.

This is what happens when you have soup for lunch and the tornado sirens go off in your neighborhood while you're eating. The loud undulating wail immediately causes your nerves to bunch....and hence....my soup is stuck in some type of esophageal suspension.

The sirens have been wailing for about 30 minutes now......and it's getting very dark outside....although I just checked the TV....and the serious weatherman (who seems secretly pleased at all the attention) says the worse is over.......someone hasn't notified the guy who flips the switch on the sirens.

We've been battered here in my section of the south for over three weeks now. It feels like we're under siege. The lightening and thunderstorms have been so intense....the floors shake...my pictures dance on the walls.....and soon my front lawn will turn into a bog.

We've had tornadoes and threats of tornadoes.....flooding ....winds...severe lightening...and strange temperature fluctuations.....where you begin the day in a sweater and change into a t-shirt in a couple of hours.

Because I live near a golf course....I'm also able to enjoy the additional wails of their lightening sirens to warn workers and golfers. Yesterday between storms I took a walk near the greens and noticed many of the sand traps are missing..... sand....and although I don't play golf....I suspect that's a necessary component of a sand trap.

The only being who seems nonchalant about all of this is my remaining dog Mattie...who is deaf. I just checked her and again she's blissfully asleep in the garage....warm, dry and snug in her bed. I presume the cement floor doesn't shake.....and since she's not the brightest dog on the planet ...there's no neurons questioning why it's always dark outside.

Her former canine companions were terrified of storms....and I actually have left-over "storm medicine" for them....low dose Valium from the vet. If my soup ball doesn't move soon....I think trying some "storm medicine" might be a good idea.

I know I should be grateful that we...my family and I and our house..... are intact during all this weather....our daily newspaper displays pictures of people who aren't so lucky....massive trees resting on sofa couches, roofs gone...water levels high enough to create indoor swimming pools ......BUT....the daily gloom ....gray.....rain and sirens....is getting stressful. This morning I've already received a couple of emails from friends around town....complaining of "raw nerves."

If things don't quite down soon...the city fathers.....are either going to have to set up chaise lounges in the river market downtown with imported psychologists to help us through our anxieties or dispense massive amounts of storm medicine to the populace.

Storm medicine might be more practical.....as I imagine some folks might take advantage of the psychologists to unload more than storm fears and hence wouldn't move off the couches....creating civil unrest among the lines of people holding onto their umbrellas and waiting their turn.

Hmmmm.....I wondered how Noah survived forty days and forty nights of this stuff? Perhaps God gave him an industrial strength storm medicine prescription .....I mean can you imagine trying to handle storms like this.....along with elephant dung?

Geez....that's a real unpleasant thought.
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Obviously a child living in the south these last few weeks.

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It's Spring in the South...But We're Paying for It....

Hey there's nothing like a southern thunderstorm to announce the arrival of spring. And last night we had a good one.....even our deaf dog was hiding and our other dog looked like he just swallowed EX-LAX.

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At one point the whole house pinged from hail that bounced off windows...cars....decks and lawn furniture. I love these storms....even though they scare me. I sat outside under our covered deck and felt what a southern sky can do. The lightening was so intense....the sky turned blue then white....wow.

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Since I was a little kid....I always thought if you faced a storm outside you would be safe....sort of like David meeting Goliath.....till this day....I'm outside checking the sky when the tornado sirens blow....or I sit on the porch facing down the thunder. It feels better than being all confined and huddled around your emergency radio.

Science Project Hail

This is my front doormat. It looks like someone carefully placed Hail of various sizes for display.

Ooooh I like this one......lightening causing weirdness in my camera lens.

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