A Week's Worth

Uffda. What a week I've had.

It all started last Friday.

The t-shirt says it all.....

The Divas gathered.

We had our Queen along.

'Nuf said?

Yeah, 'nuf said.


Got home Sunday. Monday was spent in recovery mode.

Tuesday was spent with friends at an afternoon corn feed. If you've never had Jubilee sweetcorn, you haven't lived. Add a bit of wine, a few new friends, a couple old friends, a perfect summer day, and life in the country doesn't get any better.

Wednesday I took a friend to the ER in Mason City, Iowa. Five hours later we had the diagnosis. Shingles. Painful little buggers. The pain meds must have been pretty awesome because I had to practically pour her into the pharmacy to get the prescriptions! After 5 hours in the ER waiting room, I coulda used a dose of that myself.

Thursday was another round of election judge training. Woohoo. This time we got to learn all about the new HAVA machines. These are the federally mandated ballot marking machines that have to be in every precinct in the country. Another whole column could be written about federal mandates (and state mandates, and county mandates, and any other governmental body that feels like throwing around their power mandates....but don't get me started!)Hands on training. I got to pretend to be blind. The HAVA maching worked well in my case. Slow, but it worked. Then we got to learn how to use the ballot counting machine. Well, actually, we just learned how to put it together, start it, stop it, and then we were given instructions on who to call when all hell breaks loose on election day. SNAFU training.

When class ended, we walked out into late afternoon weather that felt, hmmm, how do I explain the feeling of impending freaky-deaky tornado alley weather to those who've never been here? Let's just say that it makes all the hairs on the back of your neck snap to attention even though it's hot and humid enough to make all the hairs on the back of your neck swoon, go limp, and plaster themselves to your body like wet cornsilk sticks to sweetcorn when you're removing the husks.

You take notice.

Earlier in the day there had been stormy weather to the north. Reports stated hailstones the size of softballs. Ouch! I'd checked the computer before I left for training and all the freaky-deaky stuff was well to the north.

Mother Nature doesn't always check the computer.

By the time I got home there were tornadoes much closer, but the computer still had the storms well out of our range.

Then I heard the thunder. Uh-oh. Checked the computer again. Turned off the computer. Unplugged the computer. Grabbed the flashlight, weather radio, blankie, and by the time the Wordy One and I hit the basement, the hail was here and the tornado sirens were wailing (although we couldn't hear them because we live in the country where there are no tornado sirens, but the weather radio was eeee-aaaawww, eeee-aaawwwing like crazy, so I guess you could say I have my own personal siren....if I remember to keep batteries in it.). Didn't get any softball sized hail, but quarter-sized sounds pretty huge when it's trying to break your windows. The lightning and thunder rattled everything that wasn't nailed down. The circuit breaker for our well popped. And the "siren" kept wailing.

Remember how I've said in the past that I have a pretty hefty fear of thunderstorms? When they contain tornadoes, I almost go apoplectic. When the Wordy One decides it's a good idea to be in the basement, it's even worse!! I hunker down and shake. He mentioned that we might want to consider moving someplace else, someplace safer, but he didn't think I'd like it in the Arctic Circle either(his idea of levity). Ethel, Purl, and the Belgian Airhead were a bit skittish, but seemed to enjoy the forced family togetherness in the bowels of the house.

The storm did pass (that's why I'm able to sit at my computer and write this. Duh). The weather gods spared our little corner of the prairie. The well didn't suffer any major damage. The roof looks OK. There are branches and lots of leaf detritus on our lawn, but no trees went down this time(good news, since we just finished cleaning up after the last one). The bad tornadoes (are there good ones? Duh on me.) were too close, but spared us this time.

Life in tornado alley goes on. The weekend is looking better. Marvelous news since I'll be at an art fair followed by 3 hours on open water.

Til later,

Don't irritate Mother Nature.