The close call
If it's Sunday, it's call grandma day. While we were on the phone with her, she said there was a weather warning on her TV. Mom and I immediately pulled up the weather on our computers, and there was a severe thunderstorm warning issued for all of us. Grandma said she had clouds and it was dreary by her; it was cloudy but bright to start off with here, but it got darker and darker as the call went on. By the time we ended, the sky was almost black. Oh, dear. I kept trying to refresh the radar but it was static, not moving; it was obvious that it would hit us first and grandma would be a little later. Good thing we got off the phone when we did; within a couple minutes, we lost power. It tried to come back on a few times within the first 5-10 minutes, but then it was off for close to an hour. It was so dark outside that we couldn't see too well inside, either. I opened the blinds upstairs and that helped, and I decided to kill time by practicing. Perfect: The power came back on as I was running through "Stars and Stripes Forever" (yes, that again), and I played one more number and was done.
I will also say that I'd opened the blinds in the computer room when I started the call, so I could get the visual, and as we finished up I was able to see Gabbie out in her owners' yard, just lying there in the grass. The husband came out and scooped her up as it was clear the bad weather was imminent. Just as he was reaching the door to take her inside, a strong gust of wind came up and blew up the large rug in front of the door, and then the big cover came off all their deck furniture. Holy crap. He was able to get her inside just as the rain came down, and it was pretty furious. With the power out, there wasn't much to do but watch the rain come down in sheets. When I decided to practice, I put the stand close to the window so I could see okay, and at times I'd notice lightning out of the corner of my eye. Sure, I was inside, but when you play a long metal instrument, you get a little nervous around lightning.
We did talk a little bit about family on the call. My cousin's daughter came up as her birthday was Thursday; she is now officially 6. (Yep, she shares a birthday with my dad, along with a great-niece on his side who's a year younger. That was a fun couple years--oh, who shares a birthday with dad now?!) My other cousin's fiancee really seems to like her and vice versa; the little one already considers the fiancee her aunt. They'd sat next to each other at our family dinner a few weeks back and grandma and I were able to watch their interaction. It was very sweet. Yeah, we all like the fiancee.
This also gives me a chance to bring up a few things I hadn't mentioned back then:
--My uncle seemed really interested in all the genealogical stuff I'd talked about; I really should send him some of the info I'd come across.
--We were regaling the fiancee with some of our family stories, and I'd said to grandma, tell the duck story! My female cousin went, that's one of my favorites! Except grandma didn't launch into the story we knew; it was some other story about the duck, and how she'd gotten rid of it. Uh...what about Aunt Helen in the bathroom? Even my uncle was like, that's what we're talking about! ...Oh! Right. So, my mom had gotten a duckling, which grew into a duck. Grandma needed a place to keep it, so the duck stayed in the bathtub. One day her brother-in-law had gotten a new car and drove over to show it off, since he was like that, and Aunt Helen (her sister) had to use the bathroom. She had no idea there was a duck in the bathtub and as she's sitting there, going about her business, up comes this head out of the bathtub; it may have quacked at her. Helen freaked out and ran over to grandma, going, you could tell someone you have a duck in the bathtub! Heh. Anyway, it probably wasn't long later when, long story short, grandma met someone whose family had a lonely duck on a farm somewhere, and grandma played matchmaker and sent mom's duck to the farm to live out its days. I think we were all like, yeah, I wondered what happened to the duck!
(The fiancee's family owns chickens, too, so that was especially interesting.)
--Grandma is a special person, and when you get her going, it's hard to stop her. She's pretty charming in her own right, which is why we let it slide when nearly all the stories she started telling were about holidays--birthdays and Christmas, mainly. At one point I leaned over to my uncle and was like, how great for grandma to be telling all these holiday stories! He was sort of like, I know, right? Heh. But bless the fiancee, she was great, listening and smiling and laughing. Hopefully my cousin had said to her, uh, she's Catholic, so she celebrates stuff and likely will talk about it.
(Flashback to the oldest cousin's 8th grade graduation party, where my grandfather was literally going, don't mention birthdays, don't mention birthdays...then the first thing he says to her is, how's your birthday party going? D'oh! Like, it was NOBODY's birthday and it shouldn't have come up at all, really, but that was my grandfather. He would get nervous around the Jehovah's Witnesses.)
--My cousin's daughter tried to hitch a ride home with us. We realized we needed to get going, so after we took a few pictures on the porch, grandma walked over to get settled in our car--and the six-year-old hopped into my seat. Uh, where am I going to sit? I got told, the front! Uh, but that's where your auntie was going to sit. Where is she going to sit now? By that point, her father was poking his head through grandma's door, and pulling out the middle name, and the six-year-old got out of the car. Hey, I get it, I don't get to see grandma much either, and she can be fun to have around.
--Her little brother was cute, too. Grandma had brought gifts for them (in a Christmas bag, heh), including this green truck for the baby. People were taking turns driving the truck on the ground, and my cousin said, he wants you to make car sounds. Nobody did that. Eventually dad got up from the table and sat in the living room, where the baby was playing with the truck, and dad started making "vroom"-type sounds, and there you go. Friend for life. Meanwhile, in front of the window was this small square side table. At some point the baby got himself between the window and the table and he pushed it over and it made a crashing sound on the floor. Nobody was hurt and nothing got broken, but it was temporarily scary. The table was empty, which helped. And the little guy got startled but didn't hit full-on crying mode, which is good.
--Finally, my aunt and uncle have a piano. I don't know how long they've had it, but I don't think we've seen it before. They got it for free but I guess it's wildly out of tune, so it's pretty much just a large piece of art in the corner of the living room.
Good, I'm caught up with that. The shower is in a few weeks, so I'll have more stories at that time.
I will also say that I'd opened the blinds in the computer room when I started the call, so I could get the visual, and as we finished up I was able to see Gabbie out in her owners' yard, just lying there in the grass. The husband came out and scooped her up as it was clear the bad weather was imminent. Just as he was reaching the door to take her inside, a strong gust of wind came up and blew up the large rug in front of the door, and then the big cover came off all their deck furniture. Holy crap. He was able to get her inside just as the rain came down, and it was pretty furious. With the power out, there wasn't much to do but watch the rain come down in sheets. When I decided to practice, I put the stand close to the window so I could see okay, and at times I'd notice lightning out of the corner of my eye. Sure, I was inside, but when you play a long metal instrument, you get a little nervous around lightning.
We did talk a little bit about family on the call. My cousin's daughter came up as her birthday was Thursday; she is now officially 6. (Yep, she shares a birthday with my dad, along with a great-niece on his side who's a year younger. That was a fun couple years--oh, who shares a birthday with dad now?!) My other cousin's fiancee really seems to like her and vice versa; the little one already considers the fiancee her aunt. They'd sat next to each other at our family dinner a few weeks back and grandma and I were able to watch their interaction. It was very sweet. Yeah, we all like the fiancee.
This also gives me a chance to bring up a few things I hadn't mentioned back then:
--My uncle seemed really interested in all the genealogical stuff I'd talked about; I really should send him some of the info I'd come across.
--We were regaling the fiancee with some of our family stories, and I'd said to grandma, tell the duck story! My female cousin went, that's one of my favorites! Except grandma didn't launch into the story we knew; it was some other story about the duck, and how she'd gotten rid of it. Uh...what about Aunt Helen in the bathroom? Even my uncle was like, that's what we're talking about! ...Oh! Right. So, my mom had gotten a duckling, which grew into a duck. Grandma needed a place to keep it, so the duck stayed in the bathtub. One day her brother-in-law had gotten a new car and drove over to show it off, since he was like that, and Aunt Helen (her sister) had to use the bathroom. She had no idea there was a duck in the bathtub and as she's sitting there, going about her business, up comes this head out of the bathtub; it may have quacked at her. Helen freaked out and ran over to grandma, going, you could tell someone you have a duck in the bathtub! Heh. Anyway, it probably wasn't long later when, long story short, grandma met someone whose family had a lonely duck on a farm somewhere, and grandma played matchmaker and sent mom's duck to the farm to live out its days. I think we were all like, yeah, I wondered what happened to the duck!
(The fiancee's family owns chickens, too, so that was especially interesting.)
--Grandma is a special person, and when you get her going, it's hard to stop her. She's pretty charming in her own right, which is why we let it slide when nearly all the stories she started telling were about holidays--birthdays and Christmas, mainly. At one point I leaned over to my uncle and was like, how great for grandma to be telling all these holiday stories! He was sort of like, I know, right? Heh. But bless the fiancee, she was great, listening and smiling and laughing. Hopefully my cousin had said to her, uh, she's Catholic, so she celebrates stuff and likely will talk about it.
(Flashback to the oldest cousin's 8th grade graduation party, where my grandfather was literally going, don't mention birthdays, don't mention birthdays...then the first thing he says to her is, how's your birthday party going? D'oh! Like, it was NOBODY's birthday and it shouldn't have come up at all, really, but that was my grandfather. He would get nervous around the Jehovah's Witnesses.)
--My cousin's daughter tried to hitch a ride home with us. We realized we needed to get going, so after we took a few pictures on the porch, grandma walked over to get settled in our car--and the six-year-old hopped into my seat. Uh, where am I going to sit? I got told, the front! Uh, but that's where your auntie was going to sit. Where is she going to sit now? By that point, her father was poking his head through grandma's door, and pulling out the middle name, and the six-year-old got out of the car. Hey, I get it, I don't get to see grandma much either, and she can be fun to have around.
--Her little brother was cute, too. Grandma had brought gifts for them (in a Christmas bag, heh), including this green truck for the baby. People were taking turns driving the truck on the ground, and my cousin said, he wants you to make car sounds. Nobody did that. Eventually dad got up from the table and sat in the living room, where the baby was playing with the truck, and dad started making "vroom"-type sounds, and there you go. Friend for life. Meanwhile, in front of the window was this small square side table. At some point the baby got himself between the window and the table and he pushed it over and it made a crashing sound on the floor. Nobody was hurt and nothing got broken, but it was temporarily scary. The table was empty, which helped. And the little guy got startled but didn't hit full-on crying mode, which is good.
--Finally, my aunt and uncle have a piano. I don't know how long they've had it, but I don't think we've seen it before. They got it for free but I guess it's wildly out of tune, so it's pretty much just a large piece of art in the corner of the living room.
Good, I'm caught up with that. The shower is in a few weeks, so I'll have more stories at that time.