On Vox: [wind blows]
Crazy-ass day yesterday!!!
I got up disgustingly early so I could haul all my yard sale crap out before the early birds made the rounds. Craig took off for a hamfest and some testing (he's a volunteer examiner), so I was left all alone with the yard sale, ...quite literally ALONE since NO ONE even came by to look at anything! I tried not to throw in the towel early, just in case there were big spenders on their way, but rain was gathering on radar. When it looked to definitely rain on me, I put up the "FREE STUFF" signs. -One- woman came by, one very nice woman, She took my bunny statuary and gave them a good home, as well as a few other odds and ends. I put a few things I think I can sell online back in the house, and loaded my car with everything else so I can drop it off somewhere tomorrow. So after a month of digging through my house and two sweaty days putting it all out in my yard, I netted about $12.00. Argh!!!
Craig came back from the hamfest and presented me with a radio he bought for me. :) I told him, "You know I'm probably not ever going to talk on that," and he said, "I know, but every ham needs a radio." I thought that was so sweet! That was also the first time I realized that I'm a ham, ...well, in that sense of the word anyhow. :D
I spent the day cleaning up some yard sale mess (still so much more to deal with! BLEH!) and looking things up online to determine what's worth trying to eBay and what isn't. I'm hoping to get a few listings up today, but I'm so damn tired. We'll see.
When the yard sale disappointment started to wear off, the stir-crazy set in, so we took our $12 profit and some gift certificates and went out for dinner and a movie. We ate at our favorite restuarant, a Lebanese place where the food is superb. We made dinner out of some shared appetizers of grape leaves, falafel and hummus, and we shared a pot of Arabic coffee, then headed out to catch a showing of Splice.
I wasn't expecting a lot from Splice, but it was actually rather good. I told Craig, "That was the best American made foriegn film I've ever seen." It had the cerebralness that the good foriegn flicks need to make it across the pond, and only for a few brief moments at the end did it seem to slip into typical pointless Hollywood sensationalism, and even then, I couldn't say it was completely pointless sensationalism. It was very enjoyable sci-fi, especially for American theater!
We got home before the storms hit, and were checking radar every once in a while so we knew which windows would be best for lightning viewing and when. I refreshed wunderground.com at one point and noticed there were suddenly tornado warnings up. We took a peek outside, but it didn't seem terribly stormy. We heard sirens, not tornado sirens (never heard them at all last night!) but rather energency vehicle sirens, so Craig turned on the scanner, and that's when we started hearing about tornadoes and how close they'd come: about 5 miles to the south of us. Homes were destroyed, wires down, possible injuries reported, and the storms were tracking east toward my mom's house.
I called my mom to make sure everyone there was still awake, aware of what was coming, and ready to take shelter, and then watched the radar until it passed over her. There were reports on the news of damage near her house, so I called back to check, and things were ok there. The wind took out her power and knock up some of her deck, but that was all.
There was another line of strong storms expected some time around 2am, so we stayed up to be ready for it. It came and went here, but radar showed rotation popping up here and there as it got closer to Mom's. Since they were still without power, I called to let them know, and they all hid in the basement again. The storms covered three counties in a west-to-east line with angry red on the radar, so it took a long time to watch it all go by, and a little after 3am I was able to call Mom and let her know the worst was likely past, and we all finally went to bed.
I saw just a bit of the news this morning. There was a lot of damage out where my mom lives, with some fatalities sadly confirmed. I guess a house about 4 blocks from her was completely blown apart and is just gone, though the people who lived there are ok. No coverage yet on the damage near my house, no daytime footage anyhow. And everything stayed well north of my dad's place, so he's good. It was weird to be playing phone tag with everyone last night, and yet comforting to know we were all looking out for each other and all, in the end, unscathed. It was a very scary night.
Originally posted on seph.vox.com