I wanted to take a moment to point out that yes, I did attempt to call my mother yesterday for Mother's Day, but I heard little more than "Hello" and "I can't hear you" before the call cut out. My parents are at their beach house this weekend (because, yes, they have a beach house) and phone reception there is, apparently, spotty. I texted her Happy Mother's Day and emailed her afterwards to follow up just in case the text didn't go through either. She got it and texted me back later in the afternoon. I did send a card, of course, and I do have a Mother's Day gift for her (which she'll get when she comes in for the wedding in several weeks).
I didn't have to call Mama, of course, as I'd spent a topless, sweaty lunch with her via Skype -- but I also sent Mama a card last week and bought her a blueberry bush which Daisy took back with her on her last visit down here a few weeks ago. I don't know where or if Mama planted it, as it was the kind that can grow in a pot, specifically bred for small spaces.
So. Anyway.
Once I was done cleaning and taking care of the labor-intensive, sweaty things around the house, it began to get dark. Like, really dark, outside. I was expecting this, of course -- mind you, they'd been calling for severe storms for days on end, and because of the sun and heat yesterday morning, the atmosphere was ripe for some pretty heavy shit. Plus, there was this:
Vaguely phallic graphics aside, we knew what was coming. It wasn't exactly a secret. Plus, I'd been watching the radar and knew that a ton of severe storms were firing up to the west of me. By "the west of me," I mean "like, 200 miles away." It was all slow-moving, and didn't necessarily concern me that much. I mean, I had shit to do -- I was cleaning and packing, and barely paying attention.
Barely paying attention until Daisy told me that her entire family was in the basement because tornadoes were hitting Omaha.
Yeah.
I'd messaged her beforehand, of course, to tell her that tornadoes were forming just northwest of Lincoln (about, oh, 60 miles away), and were moving northeast towards the Omaha area. At the time, there were seven different, unique tornadoes reported. Still, the area around Lincoln is much what one would expect when one thinks of stereotypical Nebraska -- lots of plains, lots of open space, and some small scattered towns broken up by lots of farmland with the occasional windmill, cell tower, and/or cow field. It's all wide-open countryside, so it's not exactly surprising that's where tornadoes form. Kansas is much the same, by the way.
Well, apparently those tornadoes and the severe storms accompanying them all stuck together, and around 6:45 or so they moved into the Omaha area -- hitting Daisy's part of town first. Therefore, the siren was sounded, they were put under a tornado warning until 7:30, and Daisy and her parents moved down into the basement.
I'm not sure what actually happened there, as I'm not there, but at least a few weak tornadoes (and the storms) tore up a good chunk of the city. Here's a photo from within a mile or three from Daisy's house:
They were fine, at least in their part of town; the tornado warning was eventually called off, and they went back upstairs and resumed their lives as per the usual. Daisy had been moving stuff and had been awake most of the day, so once everything had settled, she went to bed rather early -- before 10PM or so.
However, the fun was just beginning for me.
Around the time Daisy went to bed, tornadoes started popping up all over my area -- directly to the west and northwest of me. When I say "directly," I do mean that -- within 20-25 miles of my house, moving slowly, coming towards me. At night, so it's not like you could physically see them coming until they were right on top of you. Naturally I kept a very close eye on the weather and on the radar. I didn't really have much of a choice there, if I wanted to -- y'know -- live.
Luckily, the tornadoes dissipated before getting much closer, and the "primary threat" was downgraded to golf-ball sized hail and 70mph winds, which wasn't exactly better by any stretch of the imagination. The last severe thunderstorm we had like that, last summer, destroyed half the trees in town and blew in people's garage doors, snapped power lines, smashed people's cars with large tree branches, etc. So I waited. I followed the radar, and I waited.
The first storm was meh. Yeah, there was a little wind, and there was some hard rain, but the hail was pea-sized and there was very little of it. It moved through in about ten minutes, and after all the buildup...yeah, gotta admit, I was a little disappointed. You know me -- I get a weather boner for anything exciting that happens (or is supposed to happen). It was pretty, but there was almost no real thunder and/or lightning that was close enough to be scary and/or dangerous. It was a letdown.
Until half an hour later, when round two hit.
The second storm didn't bring a ton of rain, hail, or wind with it (the rain was pretty steady throughout), but it did bring some really close lightning and incredibly loud thunder for about half an hour, made my electricity flicker, knocked out my internet for a bit, and rattled the windows. The cats were scared, hiding under my desk with me and trying to, I can only assume, crawl inside my feet, which is (obviously) physically impossible.
Round two lasted for close to two hours. Eventually I got bored with it and went to bed, though it's not like I slept that well -- the front moving through gave me one of the worst pressure/sinus/cluster headaches I've had in years, and because everything is boxed up and sealed, I couldn't take any medicine for it. I went to bed at 1AM -- I'm not sure I was able to sleep peacefully (instead of drifting in and out of a half-conscious state) until around 4, when the headache finally subsided.
I woke up around noon, again dazed and groggy. It's only in the 50s today (it was 91 yesterday, so that's a welcome change) and it's still dark and gray. It's only supposed to be in the 50s and 60s for the rest of the week, only to start warming up -- you guessed it -- into the high 80s and 90s again on the days we'll be moving, because Kansas couldn't let me go quietly and comfortably, apparently. Brandon has to do something outside? Something labor-intensive? Let's make him hate it even more than he normally would!
I mean, I totally should've expected this.
Anyway.
Because of my lack of comfortable, normal-feeling sleep, I've been having a rough time motivating myself or finding energy to do a whole lot today. This is bad, I've found -- I need as much good, quality sleep and rest as I can get when I'm preparing to uproot myself and my entire life to move to Omaha within a week, as time is a factor (obviously). To those ends, I did finish cleaning the upstairs bathroom, completely, mopping the floors and scrubbing the hell out of the toilet until I reached what I like to call my "fuck it limit" -- which roughly translates to fuck it, it's not getting any cleaner than this, and I'm sick of inhaling bleach fumes. The bathroom is clean. It's as clean as it's getting. I'll probably wipe it down with some Clorox disinfecting wipes a week from today, but I'm not going to actively clean it any more than it's already been cleaned, except for to put up a new shower curtain when I leave.
On that note, even though it's barely dark yet, I'm going to bed. I'm exhausted and my poor sleep last night isn't helping that any.
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