A Good Thing. But Also A Bad Thing.

Soooooooo, after yesterdays blog post, I sat down and wrote a little more on my book.  And I started to feel better.  We had company last night for dinner - a friend of Jamey's (well and mine too!) - so once I got Joshua to bed, I had some more free time.  And I decided to write again.  I also received a lovely, encouraging comment from my buddy, Lisa, which cheered me immensely. (Thank you Lisa.  And have I mentioned how much I love Peppermint Mocha creamer on here before?!?!?)

So I wrote some more.  And guess what?  I got some good momentum going!  That was nice.  It was so good that I didn't want to go to bed, but I made myself turn the computer off and go upstairs at 11pm.  Then I lay in bed until sometime after 12am.  Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide awake.  Thinking about the book (and a few other things).  And guess what else?  I had to go downstairs at some point during that hour to get a pad of paper and a pen to write down an idea.  So pad of paper and pen now once again reside on my bedside table.  And that was good, right?

But then - oh yes - it was bad.  Around 4am, I woke up and had to go to the bathroom.  I came back in and got back in bed.  And then I had a lovely bout with my Restless Leg Syndrome.  If you don't know what that is, it is an odd condition that lots of people have.  It sounds weird, and to some, unbelievable even.  But it's true!  Google it if you don't believe me!  My mom has it too.  You can't get your legs comfortable.  They don't hurt.  But they are positioned one way and then you start to feel like, "I am uncomfortable.  If I just move my legs to this position, that feeling will go away."  So you move them.  And they are OK for a minute.  And then the irresistible urge to change positions comes again.  Over and over again.  It's not fun.  Sigh.  So once I finally got through that, I started dozing off.

And then the storm came.  The wind and rain blew so hard that it woke me out of my dozing state.  And Jamey got up (this was around 5am), because he was going to the gym for a spin class (yes, he is crazy).  And I lay in bed listening to the storm.  I was sure it was going to wake Jman up.  But he slept right through it.

I, of course, did not sleep right through it.  Instead, I got scared and went downstairs and turned on the news to watch the storm move through.  I thought for sure we were going to have a tornado. 

Living in Texas, we had lots of scary storms.  The silliest three stories I have about Texas and its weather are as follows:

When we first found out we were moving to Texas, I said something to Jamey about tornadoes.  He assured me that Texas did not get that many.  So after we moved there, Jamey and I went in to get our insurance stuff taken care of.  And we are talking to the agent and I am super surprised that the cost is so much higher than in Richmond.  I'm talking about four times as much!  And I ask why.  And the guy says, "Well we have a good amount of hail damage.  But the real issue we have is tornadoes."  And I can see Jamey out of the corner of my eye wildly making the "cut across the throat" gesture in an effort to get him to shut up.  And I look at the guy and say, "I thought Texas didn't get many tornadoes?"  And the guy says (I think I'm quoting verbatim here. . .)  "Well little lady, actually, you are now living in the tornado capital of the world!"  And he says it like he's all proud of himself and this fact!  Needless to say, Jamey was busted, and I was not happy.  Should have been our first clue that we would want to come back home to Richmond the first chance we got.

When we moved into our house in Fort Worth, we lived at the end of a cul-de-sac.  And we had an entire wall of windows in our family room.  You could see the storms approaching.  It was like a wall of weather.  Really cool and pretty informative if you are a storm chaser.  Not really for a girl who is now not happy to know she is living in the tornado capital of the world.  (The WORLD, people.)  And we hadn't been in the house all that long.  Jamey had gone out of town on business.  He was a purchasing manager for Carmax at the time, and he went to the Denver Auto Auction every week.  And so this one particular week, he was gone and it's starting to storm and I hear what sounds like a siren.  And it's loud.  So I go outside and I am standing in my driveway.  And I'm looking around, but I don't see any rescue squads, police cars or fire trucks anywhere.  And I am still looking around, and then my neighbor across the street, who happens to be a native Texan, opens his front door a little.  And he's shouting at me like he's mad.  Like he's mad at me.  He says, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"  And I say, quite innocently and politely, I might add, "What are all those sirens about?"  And he looks at me like I am crazy, and then he says, no - he shouts again, "THOSE ARE THE TORNADO SIRENS!  THAT MEANS THERE IS A TORNADO CLOSE BY!  GO INSIDE NOW!!!!!" 

You can imagine the look of surprise on my face.  I am sure he will probably never forget it.  I run inside and slam the door and the only thing I can remember about tornadoes is to be in an interior room.  So I grab Harley, and I go into our guest bathroom.  And lucky for me, about the time I get in there, the sirens stop.  That was a fun day. 

And so the last story kind of ties in with the previous story.  Jamey went to that same auction every week.  And for the next month, on the night he was gone, we would have the same type of storm go through.  And funnily enough, there were three other ladies on our street who either had a husband who was out that night, or they didn't have a husband.  And I would have the same conversation with all these ladies.  It would go like this: 

Them - "Where are you right now?" 

Me - "I am in my bathtub, in the hall bathroom with Harley.  Where are you?" 

Them - "I am in my coat closet.  The dog is in here with me.  He's slobbering and it's hot.  He's panting." 

Me - "Come down here.  My bathroom is big enough that I could fit a couple more people in here and it wouldn't be so hot." 

Them - "No.  I'm too scared.  You come down here." 

Me - "How are you going to fit another person and a dog into your coat closet?  Besides, I'm scared too.  By the way, this bathtub is really uncomfortable.  I'm hungry.  I think I have room to fit a little fridge in here for next week so I can have snacks." 

And it would go around and around to each house till we'd all talked to each other and the storms were over.

I finally told Jamey that since he was the purchasing manager, he had to find someone else to go to that auction because I was tired of being home by myself in those storms.  So he did that.  And guess what?  We never had another storm on that night of the week after that.  Nice.

So there are my Texas tornado stories.  Good times.  Hope you enjoyed the humor in them.  Me?  Not so much. . .

Have a great, tornado free day.  And in the spirit of Texas, y'all come back now, y'eah?