It was an EF-1

The other evening there was a tornado in our town. We are several blocks away from where it really hit down. What I sent out is below:

To the shock of everyone, a tornado was in _____________ on Tuesday evening. It has since been designated as an EF-1. Although most of the severe damage is several blocks over we still had enough damage in our yard and neighborhood to deal with. There were NO sirens, no warning; the power line pole in our back yard is split from the top (bent in the direction of the wind).....ergo we are w/out power. According to C_____ our area will be without power for quite a while. We had our contractor out Wednesday and he didn't see much at our place except for some gutters that need work.....

On Tuesday, we had JUST gotten home, our son had his first driver's ed lab and we were debating about going to my Mom's and letting him drive and decided not to because of the rain. Then a LARGE BOOM and the lights flickered and then nothing. Visualize this, my son is 6'0 and I am shorter, I shoved him into the bathroom and told him not to leave until we figured out what had happened......the trees made the boom noise and my son finally said, "Mom can I come out of the bathroom now? It's dark in here." By then the storm had passed.

Our neighbor two down had a LARGE tree split almost in half. One side went towards their home the other side took out the power lines. They are looking at a lot of repair work and their yard is just a mess. We may have to leave the house while C______ is working on the power; we should find out sometime soon what their plan is.....the joy of clean up, right? C______ won't do anything with minors in the house so when they call we have to run......we missed them yesterday and we may have to wait for them tomorrow if we don't have some idea of what is going on.....

Our larger maple lost several big branches and we had a very large one fall on the neighbor's garage roof. All of this has been removed as of today. The guys came out at around 7 AM and by 9:15 had cleaned, cleared and cut the branches that required removal. We no longer have a lovely maple, but what I call an "uogly" tree. Which is OK, I always wanted a "Joshua Tree" so I guess we have one now. Our neighbor told the tree guys he wanted us to take the tree down; I told them that he can pay for it ($10,000.00+ for removal)

C_______ has still not gotten to our neighborhood (we have temporary power now). A number of restaurants and other businesses in town are still without power. At least we aren't the only ones. We have been told possibly by Tuesday but more storms are expected to come through this week and next and it is unlikely that those without power will have any by the end of next week....I am extremely pessimistic about the outcome and although they are telling us Tuesday, I am betting that the cuter one and I will be without until next Friday or longer.

The boy is fine, he did spend the night at Grandma's last night; he would have been alone all day today and needed a break from being in a dark house. That and a warm meal.....he was wiped out from his night classes although just about everything else has been cancelled at this point. He was just happy to be able to take a warm shower...... and be able to sleep without flashing lights and saws 24/7.

We are happy that we are OK. No one got hurt, the kitties are fine, and the house is still standing. God has been good to us.

Hope you are all well and enjoying your Friday.....we are HOPING we have electricity soon. Although we are burning some old candles that needed to be got rid of so there is a light of some sort, we suppose.

I had sent out this e-mail yesterday to friends and family.....not because I wanted to but because I had been informed that it wasn't a "real" tornado and it was something I had made up because another family member had been in one several weeks prior.

Frankly I was annoyed. 

Who knew that Tornado’s cannot land in different states at different times. Someone had better tell the weather that it is not permissible. That and there is NO excuse for talking about a tornado in our town when another one was else where….who cares that you have to clean up? The other person is much more important….Oh Please. My response to that is someone must be….oops I forgot this is a family show….I’d better not say

were fortunate, there was no lasting damage. We still need our power pole replaced, but the crews have bigger jobs to do, and removing the power pole here is very difficult (kinda marshy back there).

What I am getting at is that we ALL need to be careful what we say to other people. The person that made the comment to the other person probably NEVER dreamed that the comment would come back to me. Or maybe they did and didn’t give a rats butt. Nonetheless you KNOW who the important people are when the ones who call are really concerned and offer to help.....the friends who e-mail when we are still quite shaken.....and offer use of a fridge or freezer when you know their home is in the midst of a remodel. The people who really love you.....that are there for you is what you find out. It is huge. And it is important. These are the people who when they hear something from you the first thing they do is offer to help.... a trite response is really disrespectful btw.

Back to the beginning here: I have lived in this town virtually all my life, the other person (commenter) hasn't lived around here since the 60's.....so what do they know about it? Right now it is about 45 degrees and it is the end of June. That is totally whacked. Climate here has changed dramatically, and it is what it is. Would the other person believe it if I told them to bring a jacket to this area in June? No. So will I bother? Probably not. Let them find out for themselves.

The cuter one is having problems of his own. We have had the philosophy of being nice to everyone (even those people who are really scummy). Many times being excessively kind to our own expense; to people who haven’t earned the privilege and to places that are not worthy of our presence. One of our neighbors was disgruntled because a tree branch fell on his garage roof. I told him that we were working through our insurance and he threatened me with court (Knock yourself out dude). We had the branch removed….although we should have told him where to go….and he has to go thru his insurance like everyone else does….his damages are under the threshold for deductible anyway not like the other family two down who have to have major work done. He wants us to remove the tree, we had looked into it once and frankly it is very expensive….not like other areas of the country who want the wood….this is just beyond what is rational- my reaction was, “Fine he can pay for it. We can’t afford it; we can afford what we did and that’s it.”

The cuter one was less than amused.

So what is the point in being nice? The cuter one and I are still working that bit out. We need to show the boy a good example, Aspie’s are famous for modeling what they see. If we let ourselves down how is that showing him how he is supposed to do it? It isn’t. But we cannot allow ourselves to be walked on either. Getting pushed around and ordered about doesn’t really work for me; I am not very good at it. In fact, my Mom told me that she was surprised anyone would bother….when that happens I normally do the opposite or do nothing at all. Neither is a good example for the boy but it does buy me time……the cuter one is ever so patient and will gently say, “it will all work out” while internalizing his anger at that person much to his detriment.

In the meantime, the kitties have got me up much too early, I am bummed because we missed the season finale of Jamie Oliver (horrors). And I am becoming laundry queen….. there are a number of horrors we get to deal with prior to enjoying our day….