A Small Price To Pay

Ya gotta take the good with the bad. 

The past few days have been very, very warm here.  Almost 80.  Freakishly warm.  And now this horrible line of storms slowly, painfully sweeping across the eastern half of the US.  (sigh)

I always get those pressure headaches (you know the ones) caused by storms moving through the atmosphere.  Feels like a spike through your eyeball.  Pain killers don't help.  I had one for most of the day today and now...Tornado warnings.  I hate it when storms move through at night.

I sleep for an hour, up for an hour.  Ginny is at my feet even now quivering every time a thunderstom moves through.  SM is still snoozing away but I got up as soon as I heard the first crack of thunder hit.  For some reason I feel watchful tonight.  Uneasy.  The TV is on and the computer has the Intellecast WXMap on that keeps "timing out". 

I am NOT liking the look of some of the storm cells that are heading our way.

Friday morning we had a very brief thunderstorm.  I was driving in to work taking a shortcut through a neighborhood to avoid some backed up traffic.  I made a left turn and saw on the corner this HUGE tree, easily as big around as my Jeep, with the bark blown clean off of it at the base.  The wood was splintered every which way.  Obviously a lighting strike.  I'd never seen one up close and personal like that before.  I drove under it before I had considered how stupid THAT was.

Most times, I'm pretty relaxed when there's threatening weather.  Not tonight though.  I asked SM to clean out some of the boxes that had accumulated on the floor of our designated "go to" closet.  It's big enough to fit all of us and is in the center of the house.  I've never had to use it.  I hope never to have to use it. The dogs have their collars on in case I need to force them in.  I've tossed my purse, keys and SM's cell in there along with a couple of flashlights.

I know that the odds are good that all these preparations won't be needed and that tomorrow morning will come with me heading into work looking like something that the cat dragged in.  That's OK.  There's a reason why God created caffene.

So it'll be a very wakeful night.  I think that there's a lot of people out there watchful tonight, just like me. 

It's a small price to pay, this night of watchfulness.

Edit Update:

6:00 am:  We had a really bad cell move through about 3:30am.  We never lost power and the winds never seemed quite bad enough to think it was a tornado.  The local news people reported a straight-line wind / rotation / or a possible touchdown just south where we live.  Of course by the time I heard THAT all of the storm had passed already.  Everything behind it looked much less threatening so off to bed I went.  I got a few hours of sleep in and looking at the radar now it looks like the worst is south of us and won't be creeping up our way. 

I hope all of you whose blogs I read made it through OK too.  Just freakin NASTY weather!