Blown up, blown away

We had another tornado scare this week, on Monday. In fact, the whole evening was weird. It started when I couldn't get home Monday night. I was pretty close, I was on the home stretch, just a few blocks from home, when traffic came to a complete stop. My car sits pretty low to the ground, and there were a bunch of big SUVs and trucks around me, so I couldn't really tell what was going on, but I could see some flashing lights, so I assumed it was an accident, apparently a big one, since all four lanes of College Boulevard appeared to be stopped.

So I sat there for awhile. When it became apparent that nothing was going to be moving for awhile, I called Bob and told him I was trapped just a few blocks from home, I could practically see our house (not really), but didn't know how long I was going to be stuck.

Then I could kind of see over some of the cars, and saw big orange construction equipment of some kind, and thought, man, would they actually close College at 6:45 on a weeknight for construction? Hard to imagine, but who knows?

Eventually, the leftmost lane started moving -- people were coming up to the traffic light and doing u-turns in the left-turn lane, going back the way they had come, so, since I was already in the left lane getting ready to turn left at the next light, I decided to do the same.

I nearly got squashed by some jerk in a huge black pickup truck who just moved into my lane and didn't even look, but fortunately I did, and just sat there patiently waiting until he jammed his way into my lane (okay, yes, I did honk at him, but he didn't look even then. I guess if you totally ignore the fact that you're being a jerk, it doesn't count . . .

I went back east, went south, went down to 119th Street, and then started west again. Bob called and said, "Where are you? Aren't you coming home?" and I said yes, I was trying!

I eventually got home, had dinner, and was watching the Olympics on television--I can't remember now what was going on that night--when they came on and said that we were under a tornado warning. At about the same time, the phone rang--my mother telling me we were under a tornado warning--and the tornado sirens went off outside. Okay, I suppose we could have ignored one of those warnings, but not all three.

I herded the cats down to the basement and stuffed them into their carriers. They weren't happy, but I told them that they would be glad they were in there if the house blew away, and they conceded the point.

I went back up and got the portable television, my cell phone, backpack and keys, my CD case of computer backups and software, and a bottle of water, and went back down. Bob came shortly thereafter with soft-sided briefcase containing his business checkbook, his computer backups, cell phone, flashlights, and a pistol. He was also wearing a headlight.

I felt that this last--the headlight--was probably a sarcastic addition for my benefit, and I said, "Hey, this is Kansas!" I don't actually worry about the house blowing away, but I figure there's nothing wrong with being cautious, and what does it hurt? The cats might argue, but we'd all be glad we were prepared if something actually did happen.

Bob ended up going back upstairs at some point. He said he was going to "check out the weather," but I figure it was something more like, "play a computer game," because it was quite awhile before I heard anything more from him, i.e., he didn't come down to report on anything. I had also brought a book, so I just settled down on the bed in the basement and read for awhile, and a couple of hours later, the siren went off again with the all-clear.

Oh, and at some point while I was down there (I had the television on, turned low), I heard that the reason College had been closed was that Dick Cheney was in town, staying at the Doubletree, and they were moving big construction trucks in to block the parking lot entrances, I guess so no one could get in a blow him up. I think it would perhaps have been nice if they had thought about that ahead of time, but it was nice to know. And I guess that explained the helicopter that I had noticed hovering above the area on my way home--I had assumed it was a traffic helicopter surveying the "accident."