In The Eye Of The Storm

Last night our area experienced a storm that knocked out power in over a million homes, caused supermarkets, gas stations and restaurants to close, weddings to be cancelled and many people to experience sleepless nights while temperatures hovered in the 100's.

We are lucky and still have our electric and internet. But we were caught in the tempest while giving the Lab her before bed walk. We were at the other end of the block from our house when it began.

In a matter of seconds the air went from humid and still to 90 miles an hour with branches breaking off above our heads, flying gravel filling our eyes and GG screaming "get down" at me.  We would crouch beside a car, wait for a break in the wind and move forward until another gust of wind came at us.  We did this for about 10 minutes, mostly with our eyes closed, slipping in the pounding rain with lightening breaking above us in an almost purple sky. It was a very long 10 minutes.

Unusually we had locked the door after ourselves and it seemed an eternity waiting for GG to turn the key in the lock.

Once inside we burst into gales of laughter, hugged the dog and dried ourselves off.

Talk about feeling powerless.

Tomorrow we leave town and and  a very messy yard with tilted plants, a fig tree listing and  an unmowed lawn. We have a broken patio table and leaf debris flung madly about. I debated taking tomorrow to clean it up. Then I got a grip. Remember last year?  We had a earthquake and a hurricane while we were on holiday. Better to live for today.

It will all be waiting for us when we return.

I think it's high time for a vacation!

Carpe diem.

xo jane

P/S. Meg over at Pigtown Design has an excellent post on the storm.