Good Morning!

Okay, it's not really morning yet. The sun isn't up, smiling at me. It's 6:07am. My Border Collie woke me at 5:05 and again at 5:40, bladder about to bursting since she will not go outside in the afternoon--so when I let her out, she went straight for the flower garden, and did her business.

Really must get some sort of fencing to go around my flowers to discourage that behavior.

Hubby is still snoring, and I'm up drinking coffee and reading email.

I left the pattern for the knitted market bag at the office, so until I take a shower and head to work, I won't be able to continue on the bag. It's not a big deal, but I would have liked to continue. Idiot me for trying to get out of work on time and hurrying out before I had everything in hand.

So I knit until the last instruction I read, which was "until there are 14 sts left on the needle", and stopped. Leaving me to watching television without something to do in my hands. After a couple of hours, I was tired of not having two things to do with my brain and went to bed. I fell asleep shortly after. Funny how Benedryl will do that to you.

But I've got at least an hour before I can take a shower and head into the big city--I don't want to sit in my car and knit, you see, while I wait for JoAnn's to open so I can demo. I want to knit a LITTLE on this bag in my demo station--answer questions and set up evenings when I can come in and knit with someone else, working on reading patterns and so forth. I'm looking forward to it. I had hoped to do some of that this week, and then I got sick, of course, which ruined the whole plan.

I failed to make the coffee strong enough, and it tastes a little flat--or perhaps my palate is failing now--allergies are really kicking in, and my nose is a little stuffy. It's a little too warm in the house, since the weather has been exceedingly nice the last few days--even to breaking a few records in the highs. We have the fan on in the bedroom, but the windows are still all closed--contributing to the stuffiness in the house. It's positively stale in here. I'm looking forward to opening windows, and letting the house air out. Today, it's supposed to really storm--with high winds--which I'm NOT looking forward to that. I don't like storms.

There's a reason why I don't like storms. When I was a young girl, we lived in the country. We had just finished renovating a house. It was nighttime. Daddy was sleeping, mommy and my brother and I were watching Tarzan on television, expecting to be watching Ed Sullivan afterward (yes, it was that long ago...shaddup!), when suddenly the television DIED as well as all the lights. Right there. Boom. No warning. No weather watches. I don't remember it being especially muggy in the house, and the rain came and pattered on the roof. A nice spring rain. We got out the candles, some milk and Oreos and settled down to listen to the rain.

A little mouse came into the middle of the living room, and we tossed a crumb to him, which he ate readily. I had never seen a mouse so bold, but once he finished scurrying under the couch, we pretty much forgot about him. The wind began to howl outdoors. It was really dark, and mother had the drapes open listening to the rain. I grabbed a pillow off the bed in my room, and sat down on the floor.

That's when it seems all hell broke loose. The characteristic freight train wail. The picture window bowed in what I remember in my mind's eye like a fish eye lense--I watched myself get fatter in the reflection--and I lay down on the floor, covered my head with the pillow and screamed at the top of my lungs (as children do), and I couldn't hear myself screaming.

When the horrible sound stopped, my mother calmly got out of her chair and walked to her bedroom and woke up my father, who NEVER EVEN HEARD IT! He got dressed and went outside. The eaves and some shingles were on the roof, and branches broken everywhere. He came back inside and pronounced that a tornado must have jumped over our house.

Well, that was the beginning of my hatred of storms, I tell you what. Now I watch them, no matter WHAT time they happen. If they wake me with humidity, thunder, lightening and wind, hail and whatever else might come, I am awake and aware and listening for the characteristic sounds that happen previous to the possibility of one coming.

I also watch weather reports, waiting for the Doppler radar to show me what I believe are the telltale signs of a tornado possibility. That being two strips of storms following each other, one after the other, with a low stretching between them, moving fast and furious over the state. I've seen this type of storm many times, and a tornado is nearly always involved. I have learned what to watch for.

But in this day and age, when clouds cover the skies, it interrupts the satellite reception, and therefore, the television goes out--even the digital television.

That means no weather unless you have a portable radio. It's been a constant battle with my husband. I'd like to put up a ham radio and have a police scanner in the house. He's not frightened at all by storms, and doesn't understand me.

"Just go to the basement, and hide in the coal bin." He says.

Coal bin, indeed. While the entire house falls on me. Pfft.

So I stand at the window and fret. Watching the animals for odd behavior. Of course, Mandy goes a little hysterical when she knows that I'm upset about something, and she whines. But she would go to ground if there was anything amiss. So far, in my life, there has been no repeat (thankfully so) of my childhood memory. With any luck, this house will crumble to the ground and I will be thankfully dead and buried, before another tornado is spotted in this area.

A girl can hope.

And today is expected to be one such type of day--humid in the daytime, cooling off in the evening, bringing with it a bit of rain and perhaps thunderstorm. Shudder.