Wednesday, June 4, 2008

you build the ark, I'll gather the animals

The weather the past two days has been extremely, and there's no other word for it, shitty. It rained all day yesterday, from the moment I walked out the door to go to work to when I got in my car at the end of the day to go to volunteering. The sky glared at me all, "WHAT? I'm RAINING! You don't like it? You think I care? WHATEVER, WHATEVER, I DO WHAT I WANT."

I was worried because last night was the final volunteering night before we go on hiatus for the summer, sort of like TV shows and my friend Nancy the Teacher. And on the last night of volunteering, the kids get to do a balloon launch. They write letters to their lost loved ones, tie them to balloons and let them fly, fly away. I'm trying to focus on how happy this makes the kids and not on the fact that once the balloon pops and falls to the Earth, some poor bird is probably going to choke and die on it. Focus on the happy, focus on the happy, look! look! something shiny!

The rain, though? The rain was threatening to KILL the balloon launch. So imagine my delight as I drove to the volunteering site and the sky became clearer and clearer. And as I sat in my car, waiting for someone else to get there and unlock the door (I'm always early), THE SUN CAME OUT. And it stayed out UNTIL WE WERE DONE WITH THE LAUNCH. It was a miracle. A balloon launch miracle. Poor birds.

Unfortunately, as I drove home from volunteering, the sky got angry again. When I got home, Heidi was making a nutritious dinner. I was hungry, too, so I made chips and salsa with M&Ms for dessert. As we sat down to eat, the tornado sirens started. "Le sigh," I thought, and looked longingly at my salsa. So spicy. So delicious. I turned on the news to see a furious, red blotch hovering over our town. Heidi was all, "is it bad?" and I was like, "no, no, it's just a tornado warning," and she said, "um . . . " and I answered, "oh, RIGHT, a tornado warning is the bad one." We don't really have a safe place to go in our apartment since we're on the second floor. Unless we go down to the first floor and cower in the coat closet, but cowering isn't really my thing, especially when I have chips and salsa in front of me. So we just sat on the sofa, ate our dinner, listened to the sirens, and watched the weatherman freak out all over the place.

It was fine. It stormed really badly for the rest of the night. The thunder was so loud that it woke me up (not a great accomplishment) but ALSO, it shook my entire room and made me hide under the covers. I didn't so much sleep as lie half-awake wondering if lightening could strike me through my window. I'm a little worried that this sleep-deprivation is causing hallucinations, because on the way to work I saw someone with an umbrella off in the distance and my first thought was not, "gee, it would suck to have to walk to work in this," it was, "OMG, it's Mary Poppins!"

8 comments:

kat said...

wait, chips and salsa with m&ms? explain.

Jennie said...

No, no, no, FIRST chips and salsa AND THEN M&Ms. Not all together, because ew.

Grad School Reject said...

A conversation from my childhood:

Little GSR - Dad, why is the thunder so scary?

Dad - It is just God and the angels bowling.

LGSR - Oooh - is the lightning part of the game?

Dad - Hell no. That stuff can kill you.

mysterygirl! said...

But imagine how sweet it would be if Mary Poppins had actually been on the street.

I'm glad the tornado didn't carry you away. I hope you ran around your apartment yelling "it's a twister! it's a twister!" like in Airplane.

Heather Anne Hogan said...

I am much more scared of balloons than I am of tornadoes. In fact, we had a tornado warning the other night and it was flashing on the screen at the same time this kid on t.v. was inflating a helium balloon, and the thing that was making me hyperventilate was not the weather.

Jennie said...

GSR, that is an important lesson. Truly! Cause this one time? This kid I knew? He got struck by lightening. And then he died. Um, wow, this got wah wah really fast.

mg! if I ever really met Mary Poppins, I'd ask her to be my nanny because she could clean up my life in a SNAP.

h!a! I'm glad there were no bears or vampires, too, cause you might have peed your pants.

Stephanie said...

I was a little concerned about the chips and salsa and M&Ms, too. Thanks for clearing that up.

Tam said...

Man I guess those dead people really wanted their balloons. I hope dead people can help me on my wedding day - I don't want rain!