Help! Someone Stole Over Two Months!

I could say I was busy, which would be true. I could claim I was kidnapped by space aliens/angels/ornery males, which would almost be true. I could show you my mug shot and swear I've been incarcerated, which would not be true. The absolute truth is less glamorous.

Let's see: I've re-grouted my bathroom floor, chased voles around my borders because they're destroying my plants, watered plants as little as possible to save water, but did have to give the poor guys a drink every now and then due to days upon days of 100-degree weather and absolutely no rain. Zip. Nada.

In my geographical location, we usually get big summer rains off storms that come into the Gulf. But not this year. I didn't expect much out of Hannah, despite her best effort to drown Florida, since Atlantic storms usually get caught in whatever it is that sucks them up the coastline. Being two hundred miles inland means we have to get rain from the other direction. I have been absolutely obsessed with the National Hurricane Center and The Weather Channel. We finally got a couple of inches of rain, but it didn't put a dent in our parched landscape. And I hate seeing the devastation storms inflict on the coastlines. My heart goes out to everyone who took a beating from Hannah, Gustav and Ike.

Of course, the highlight of one of the few systems to come through my neck of the woods was in August when a friend and I decided we needed a couple of days of 'Girl Time'. We took off to the mountains to engage in a little rocking-chair boogie and to check out the Dillard's outlet in Asheville. Rained cats, dogs and hamsters the whole time we were there. Here? One hour and fifteen minutes down the road? Nope. Anyway, we had a grand time...until we started home.

So...we're yakking along, when my phone rings. Son at Clemson University.

"Mom! Where are you?"

"Well, hi, honey. Miss Angie and I have been in the mountains and are on our way home."

"I called to tell you I'm okay."

Mom's thought processes stumble for a moment. "Uh...good."

"You don't know what's going on, do you?"

"I...don't think so."

"A tornado just hit Clemson and it's headed your way. Turn around! Turn around and go back to the mountains!"

As if cued, sirens go off in the bustling metropolis of Campobello, population 10. "Uh...uh...oh."

"I'm in the basement of the Alumni House. They just told us the tornado is heading down I-85 toward you. It's not on the ground right now but it's still there. Turn around!"

So, Mom repeats the weather update to her friend, who sticks her head out of the window to watch the clouds.

"It's not even raining here." But the clouds did have that funky look that precedes spitting out its tongue at the earth. "What did the tornado hit? There?"

"It touched down in (little town near Clemson that Mom can't remember the name and another town nearby, not so little, but Mom can't remember it either) and on campus near the football stadium." (Lord, NOT DEATH VALLEY! Clemson and its devoted alumni would mourn for centuries. Of whom, I, a University of South Carolina grad, would not be one of them. I'm worried about #2 Son and the student body, then in the next instant, have visions of the annual state rivalry shifting in the Gamecocks' favor due to the trauma suffered by Tigers everywhere. Hey! They'd be thinking the same thing if a tornado hit Williams-Brice Stadium.)

Still, I'm not completely uncaring about Tigertown. "Anybody hurt?"

"Not that I know of. It just tore up some trees and dumped them on cars in the parking lot. I think a student apartment complex lost its roof or something, but I heard everybody's okay. And lightning struck an apartment building. It burned to the ground. I don't think anybody was hurt there either. Now! Turn around!" (I'm so touched by this adorable son's concern. The other two males in my household, the one I married and the first one I birthed, didn't know or care where I was. Yeah, they love me too. What are we having for dinner?)

Since it's still pretty quiet and by the time this conversation has taken place, I'm at I-26 and only twenty minutes from home, so we decide to stay the course. #2 Son and I promise to call one another soon and I beat a path for home and the basement. Which we did not need. The storm fizzled out before it reached us. Thank goodness. I want rain, not Dorothy and Toto in my yard. And we did get a couple of inches of wet stuff that night for which I was truly grateful. Then it didn't rain again for two months.

Along with weather-related obsessions and the everyday hamster wheel I run, I have managed to research and write. I'm still plugging away on the first crappy draft...aka, FCD. Each time I review a section I've written to get up to speed, I wish I had been sucked up by a tornado and therefore, unable to continue to insult the literary world. Otherwise, as long as I breathe, I write.

Next up: A fledgling writer attends the local Citizen's Police Academy. That has not started yet. But if all goes well, I'll document this foray into law enforcement--the sanitized version of down-and-dirty police work given to the public. The itinerary looks interesting...except for the part about the entry level agility course. There may not be any pictures of that event.