Stormy Weather . . .
I spent an hour in the basement yesterday waiting for a tornado. If you watched the news yesterday you probably saw the severe weather we had here in Chicagoland. The village where I live was directly in the path of a tornado.
I had the telly on in the sunroom, and about 5:30 or so the National Weather Service broke in with the black screen and the "take cover" message for Will County, which is just south of where I live. By 5:45, it was looking kinda dark out and the take cover message had been updated. So, I called my cousin (because she's always in charge - it's a good thing :-) ) and said, "you think we should go down in the basement?"
"Yes, probably a good idea."
"OK, so you want to run over here, you don't have a basement."
"We're in the parking lot at White Sox Park."
"Oh! Well have a good time! I hope the Sox win!"
"Take your cell phone down there and call me back."
By then I had switched over to The Weather Channel and they were mentioning my village by name as being in the path of the storm. Alrighty then. I got my reading glasses and my cell phone - which doesn't work in the basement, by the way - and a book, put my flip flops on and headed downstairs just before 6 to wait out the storm. I was down there for about an hour.
I have a basement sort of basement - not really finished, although there's a fireplace down there. Just a basement sort of basement where I store stuff - up OFF the floor (learned my lesson about that in a garage flood in Southern California), and my cousin stores all her Christmas stuff there too, because she just has a crawlspace. My treadmill is down there, and the basement telly, so I put on Fox news because they were tracking the storm path on the screen with their radar.
I have one chair in the basement - because, like I said, it's a basement sort of basement. A straight-backed old bistro chair. The basement isn't a very hospitable place, really, being a basement sort of basement, except for the spiders. They love it down there! It's spider-o-rama 24/7 in my basement. And can I just say that something's going to have to be done about that - my cousin says that I have to start doing "spider patrol" and killing them before they can lay eggs down there. That's probably a really good idea, because I saw one the other day when I was on the treadmill that was just gigundous. (JesusMaryandJoseph it was huge and it looked hairy. I snuck up on it and smushed it.) She's usually right about this stuff. I'm going to have to discuss spider patrolling with her further.
Anywho, when you live in the Midwest, you grow up knowing that the Southwest corner of the basement is where you go to take cover from a tornado. Inhospitable as my basement is, it does have a real phone, which started ringing pretty much as soon as I got down there. "Are you in the basement?" "Yes, I'm in the basement." What's it like outside?" "I don't know, I'm in the basement." :-D
I went back upstairs at one point to look out the front window and see what might be going on. It was pretty dark, and raining like mad, which made me think that the tornado wasn't coming because usually here it's not raining and tornado-ing at the same time. The storm itself must have been right there at my house - a clap of thunder hit directly overhead just as I looked out the window. It shook the entire house to its foundation and scared the crap out of me - I hightailed it right back down the basement stairs immediately, and stayed put until I could see on the radar that the storm had passed over.
And pass over it did - no damage here. No tree branches in the street or anything - at least not on my street. Just a lot of water. A really lot of water. The backyard looks like a pond with the skeleton of the new deck in the middle. I had a little water come in under the back basement door (the broken drain out there is getting fixed this summer), but not too much and I was able to pass the time in the basement mopping that up.
So, that was my exciting weekend, what about you? Oh - Sox won! Yay!
I had the telly on in the sunroom, and about 5:30 or so the National Weather Service broke in with the black screen and the "take cover" message for Will County, which is just south of where I live. By 5:45, it was looking kinda dark out and the take cover message had been updated. So, I called my cousin (because she's always in charge - it's a good thing :-) ) and said, "you think we should go down in the basement?"
"Yes, probably a good idea."
"OK, so you want to run over here, you don't have a basement."
"We're in the parking lot at White Sox Park."
"Oh! Well have a good time! I hope the Sox win!"
"Take your cell phone down there and call me back."
By then I had switched over to The Weather Channel and they were mentioning my village by name as being in the path of the storm. Alrighty then. I got my reading glasses and my cell phone - which doesn't work in the basement, by the way - and a book, put my flip flops on and headed downstairs just before 6 to wait out the storm. I was down there for about an hour.
I have a basement sort of basement - not really finished, although there's a fireplace down there. Just a basement sort of basement where I store stuff - up OFF the floor (learned my lesson about that in a garage flood in Southern California), and my cousin stores all her Christmas stuff there too, because she just has a crawlspace. My treadmill is down there, and the basement telly, so I put on Fox news because they were tracking the storm path on the screen with their radar.
I have one chair in the basement - because, like I said, it's a basement sort of basement. A straight-backed old bistro chair. The basement isn't a very hospitable place, really, being a basement sort of basement, except for the spiders. They love it down there! It's spider-o-rama 24/7 in my basement. And can I just say that something's going to have to be done about that - my cousin says that I have to start doing "spider patrol" and killing them before they can lay eggs down there. That's probably a really good idea, because I saw one the other day when I was on the treadmill that was just gigundous. (JesusMaryandJoseph it was huge and it looked hairy. I snuck up on it and smushed it.) She's usually right about this stuff. I'm going to have to discuss spider patrolling with her further.
Anywho, when you live in the Midwest, you grow up knowing that the Southwest corner of the basement is where you go to take cover from a tornado. Inhospitable as my basement is, it does have a real phone, which started ringing pretty much as soon as I got down there. "Are you in the basement?" "Yes, I'm in the basement." What's it like outside?" "I don't know, I'm in the basement." :-D
I went back upstairs at one point to look out the front window and see what might be going on. It was pretty dark, and raining like mad, which made me think that the tornado wasn't coming because usually here it's not raining and tornado-ing at the same time. The storm itself must have been right there at my house - a clap of thunder hit directly overhead just as I looked out the window. It shook the entire house to its foundation and scared the crap out of me - I hightailed it right back down the basement stairs immediately, and stayed put until I could see on the radar that the storm had passed over.
And pass over it did - no damage here. No tree branches in the street or anything - at least not on my street. Just a lot of water. A really lot of water. The backyard looks like a pond with the skeleton of the new deck in the middle. I had a little water come in under the back basement door (the broken drain out there is getting fixed this summer), but not too much and I was able to pass the time in the basement mopping that up.
So, that was my exciting weekend, what about you? Oh - Sox won! Yay!
Comments
As toxic as they are, I think I'd resort to the "bug bombs." I really dislike spiders, but they eat bugs, so what else must be living down there besides the arachnids?