"Yep...we're going home now! Bye!"

Yesterday evening, I took Little Bit down to the marina so we could go for a walk and then maybe play on the playground for a while. Sadly, none of this took place.

While we did go down there, we saw my friend RM who I hadn't seen in about a year and stood there talking for a few minutes. A very few minutes. All too brief, because I miss my friend. But that's not the point of this post. As we were standing there chatting, the dark and foreboding sky that hovered over the city to our Southeast loomed and was, quite honestly, a bit concerning. Then the wind started picking up. It got stronger and stronger, whipping this way and that, shooting debris at us that stung and caused us to shield our eyes.

My friend and I looked at each other and, with little preamble or sentiment, essentially came to the same decision: "Yep...we're going home now! Bye!" And we got in our respective cars, out of the violent wind, and went home.

Little Bit was none too pleased about the prospect of going back to the house after such a brief outing - and it was difficult to explain to her why Mommy turned right around and went home. I'm quite sure that she would have played happily, even with the wind. The water on the lake churned up so quickly that there were white caps on the crests of the waves. I've never seen the water on that lake get so choppy. The drive home was interesting, watching leaves, branches, dust and other detritus* fly through the air. See the trees bending far beyond what seemed natural; in most cases without breaking. Watch the cars on the road ahead of us swerve this way and that; guided by the wind.

When we drove up our street (we live about 5 minutes away from the marina where we were) the little house across the street had some activity that was curious. A large branch had fallen in their front yard, nearly touching and blocking their side door, and rendering their on-a-pole-in-the-yard-installed satellite dish completely unusable. It must have just happened, because by the time Little Bit and I got out of the car, the folks across the street were coming out of their house to survey the damage. I'd bet they were watching something on television and went outside to investigate only when their satellite signal vanished. No one was hurt.

So I had to explain to Little Bit why we went home so quickly - and she didn't really understand the concept of what strong storms, and especially strong winds, can do. So we watched a couple of videos on YouTube with tornadoes and other strong wind-related storms. She got it. Then she decided that she was afraid a tornado would come to our house, and by this time I was absolutely certain that would not happen, so I assured her that she was fine and that we, and the house, and the dog, and all her toys, were completely safe.

Her response? She shrugged, went into her room to play with a game and then 15 minutes later was sound asleep - all on her own. It was about 7:00 p.m.

Where were Kiddo and Hubby during all this? At a local church for a Cub Scout meeting.

This morning, all seems well with the world, however there is storm damage all over the place, and people still dealing with power outages. There are even a couple elementary schools that have had to delay opening by a couple of hours due to clean up of storm damage.

And guess what? We get to do it all over again today!

I'm SO glad I work right by a large bank of windows!

TTFN JMS

* Yes, I had to look it up. I thought it was "detrius" but apparently it's not.