tornado watches

I've been a little off-kilter this morning. Brian had mentioned a few days ago that he's switching his day off from Mondays to Fridays during the summer. So, today being Friday, I was in the whole 'Brian is home today' gear. Brian home days are often different from Brian at the office days. My emphasis shifts from things I need to do, to a combination of things we could do and what I'll be able to do with a built-in doggie sitter (read:

contract SEO work). So I was in that gear this morning, until about 7:30 when I heard his alarm going off. I figured he'd forgotten to turn it off last night. And then 5 minutes later I heard it going off again. Weird. It wasn't until 8:10 when I went into the bedroom to put something away that I realized he was putting work clothes on. Enlightenment (finally) came shortly thereafter. NEXT week begins the new day off thing.

I usually plan my day between 6:30 and 7:30am. So I've been fairly derailed. Which has been good, because in my determination not to have another listless day of mediocrity and frustration (I've had a few too many of those in recent weeks), I was GOING to DO STUFF today. So I have. But when it was time to sit down and do my Company Girl post, I was kinda lost.

Until I read Rachel's tornado commentary and looked at that photo (OMG OMG OMG). 

I grew up in North Carolina. In the south, we get big scary things like hurricanes, and floods, and electrical storms, and the occasional ice storm or race riot. Not to mention oppressive humidity. We do not get tornadoes very often, if ever. 

As such, I am no-sweat about hurricanes, but I am TERRIFIED of tornadoes. Ter. Ri. Fied.

But now I live in Denver. Where we don't get hurricanes, and flooding doesn't seem to be a major concern, and snow storms are a way of life (and are usually melted off by lunch time anyway), and people don't even really notice race, let alone riot about it (which, hello, there are more important things to notice than skin color).

Denver's in the mountains, right?

NO. Wrong. Denver is NOT in the mountains. Denver is near the mountains, but Denver is in the plains. 

That's the other thing about growing up in North Carolina. We have the beautiful (and they are beautiful, people!) Appalachians in the west, the rolling hills of the piedmont in the middle, and the flat-tastic coastlands to the east. Heading west, you kind of build up to the mountains with hill after hill after bigger hill after the-mountains-are-just-past-those-big-hills. 

Out here, it's flat-flat-flat-flat-whaBAM you're going up a mountain. And Denver is in the flat part, at the edge of the plains. 

That means we get snow in May (true story - and the snow was gone by 11am an the high was like 60 or something that day) and we also get tornadoes sometimes. 

Wednesday threatened to be one of the tornado days. My county was under tornado watch for many hours. Too many hours, if you ask me...9 or 10 or so. I start getting heart palpitations when there's a tornado watch anywhere within 200 miles of me...when there's one in my own county, I go into hiding. Even if it's just a watch. 

So what did my crazy-pants self do? I made a spur-of-the-moment tornado kit, aka a laundry basket containing my cell phone and wallet, 2 oranges and the last banana, an empty vinegar jug filled with water, a giant quilt, the garage door opener, our checkbooks because our accounts are new and I don't have the numbers memorized yet, a couple books, and some plastic bags for...I don't remember why I had those. 

Can you think of all the things I should have put in there instead? I can, now. Candles. First aid kit. Maybe some extra clothes or at least some sturdy shoes. Maybe some toilet paper, haha. And a million other emergency safety things that would occur to me in any other situation. Our 'weather radio' doubles as walkie talkies and those were at the church, so that wasn't an option. I was afraid to look up 'tornado kit' lists, on the off chance that I wouldn't have something and then I would REALLY panic because WHAT IF I NEED THAT THING WHEN THE TORNADO HITS AND I DON'T HAVE IT, WHAT WILL BECOME OF ME?? WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE DOGS??? ALL BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE A BAG OF KITTY LITTER AND SOME GOGGLES!!

Our safest room in case of a tornado is our laundry room / dog crate room / hallway to the garage. All their food and water was in there already, as were all our not-good towels and most of our tools since that's where those things live. So I had 'tornado drills' with the dogs. No, seriously. We would practice. I would give them the crate command with great urgency, looking concerned but strong, wrap myself in the quilt, and take off for the laundry room. I even thought about crawling into Rory's crate with her. That's how out of my mind I was.

Over a tornado WATCH.

At least I didn't time us. 

Suffice it to say, if we ever have a tornado within spotting distance, I will be the lady wetting her pants in the laundry room, not the lady out on the porch with a camera.

I've linked up with Company Girl Coffee this morning. Company Girl Coffee is a fun weekly link-up at Home Sanctuary. Check it out, and come on in!