Rude Awakening

|A little after 8:00 this morning and we’re peacefully sleeping in but awakened by sudden roar of wind. Sit up in bed and look out window, it doesn’t look bad, but the wind is getting even louder. Now we’re standing up and suddenly it sounds like hail pelting the house, including a really loud bang I think must be about the size of a grapefruit, and the wind has taken on that dreaded freight train sound. No sirens, but we skeedaddle for the basement, trying to grab flashlight and radio. Electricity goes out when we get to the closet. No sooner found radio station than it goes off the air. A couple minutes and the wind stops, but now the sirens. They last a few minutes and stop. Radio station is still off. Venture a look out the back, calm, although the doghouse is halfway across the yard, without its roof. Radio comes on and they’re talking about maybe a tornado, maybe a wind shear, maybe a microburst, but plenty of damage all around town. But, that was it. Electricity came back in about an hour. All day and they still can’t decide whether it was a tornado or something else. Also all day more really nasty weather all swung by just to the southeast. Yeah, I guess it’s springtime in Kansas. Oh, yeah, there was no hail. It was all the bits and pieces of trees and trash and neighbor’s roof pelting the house.|
The roof is in upper right, by the corner of the fence. Check out the green grass.
Neighbor’s probably getting a new roof. We only lost three or four shingles.|

P.S. Whoa! Watching 10:00 news. I didn’t know it was this bad! KU has cancelled classes tomorrow and placed campus off-limits to employees on account of all the down power lines and damage to buildings, and they’re showing an awful lot of pictures of cars crushed under trees, a mobile home cut in two with a tree down, another totally demolished, traffic signals blown off the poles, traffic signs bent over, beaucoups windows gone. Journal-World Photos. Wow. Of course, part of that might be from the partying after KU beat Texas for Big 12 Championship. 🙂

Geez It’s March Already

Imagine outside it’s 80 degrees, birds a-chirpin’, college kids running around downtown in shorts and tank tops, convertibles with tops down. Then try to imagine it’s March 1 in Kansas. Screeeeeeech! Cognitive dissonance! Strange, but true. March 2 and comes not only my birthday but a blast of arctic air that drops the temperature by 20 degrees. That’s more like it! Except, it’s still 60 degrees and the birds are a-chirpin’ and the college kids are running around in shorts and tank tops and the convertibles are scooting around with tops down. Well, I ain’t complainin’.

Today we saw the Cirque du Soleil Delerium show in Kansas City. Way loud, and they frequently and without warning flashed extremely bright lights directly in our eyes. When you recovered you could see on the other side of the arena they were using lights to make patterns on the audience. We left with headaches and ringing ears, but otherwise it was a pretty great show! Younger people could probably tolerate the assault better. The weather, at least, was a little more realistic, cloudy and rainy and windy and like 45 degrees. Kind of like, well, San Francisco.

But, geez, it’s March already! KU just played it’s last regular season game (beat K-State in Manhattan, in return for their beating us in Lawrence). If Texas loses tomorrow KU wins Big 12 championship, if Texas wins then KU and Texas tie for championship.