X-treme Weather

My Uncle Don once remarked how my grandmother had this weird ability to bring extreme weather with her, no matter where she went. When he was relating the story to me, I was visiting him in Seattle during the Great Heat Wave of July 2004. People were melting in the streets of their un-air-conditioned houses in a town where the summer temperatures usually hovered closer to 72 degrees, not 92. My uncle pondered if I, as Mama Lou's granddaughter, might have inherited that freak tendency.

Well, folks, it looks like I did. Whatever gene is encoded with Freak Weather, I apparently have it. In the last 12 days alone, we Nashvillians have experienced snow, sleet, cold cold cold, almost-heat, tornadoes, massive amounts of rain, and severe wind. What else is there? I mean, no, we haven't had a cyclone, but that's about all I can say. It has to be me.

Anyway, you'd think David and I would be used to loud, howling wind ricocheting against our house, given that we spent four years living in the wind tunnel of the high desert. But apparently not. We both tossed and turned last night, as the wind beat the trees against our house and called us names. David even got up once to log onto the Internet, just to make sure there weren't any tornado warnings. We never heard the sirens last week, so we didn't want to miss out on a warning again. But it was just heavy winds. And then the rain came.

But alas! We got a delightful break around noon. After church, we piled William into his red wagon, and we took him for a ride around our whole neighborhood. It was almost 70 degrees and breezy. How fun it was to take a little jaunt out in the sunshine! It made me really cheerful. I was so exhausted from a mostly sleepless night, and yet a half hour in the sun was like having a cup of coffee.

Here's a paparazzi shot of the boys. They were just leaving a bar...okay, not really. They were walking past the playground and pool, where the lounge chairs have been all stacked away in the poolhouse for the winter.





















The winds came back, just so you know. And the temperature is slated to drop again tonight. So once again tomorrow, I'll put on a warm sweater and I'll make William wear a warm hat. But at least for an hour or so, it was nice to have a foretaste of springtime. Before the X-treme Weather returns again.