Tornado kisses from Pickles

I've lived in Kansas for all but six months of my life. 

Yesterday was the first time I've ever seen a tornado.

It went something like this:

I was getting ready to shut my brain and my computer down for the day at work. My phone was buzzing with weather warnings for a few minutes, and finally I saw that we were in a tornado warning.

I walked into a co-workers office, and asked if this tornado warning was something we needed to be worried about.

Sometimes, we'll have warnings, even though a tornado is in the same county but moving away from town.

My co-worker looked out her office window: "Oh, do you mean that tornado?"

Why yes, yes I do mean that tornado. And the fact that I can see it means I'm worried about it.

I did what any other normal Kansan would do in that situation - I went outside and looked at it. In the span of a few minutes, the tornado grew in size. (See the photo above vs. the photo below)

As someone else outside pointed out, it was getting bigger and heading straight towards us. 

At that point, I noped out of there, went home, threw my dogs and my purse in the basement, and decided I had enough time to put my car in the garage. 

While I was doing this, I got a frantic phone call from my aunt: "Get your dogs and go to your basement now."

It wasn't so much a request, as it was a warning. My aunt works in the south part of town, just as I do, and she watched the tornado grow just like I did. 

That tornado fizzled out, which made me laugh later in the night. I went from OH MY GOD to dude, let's chill out and watch the rain in a matter of minutes.

It's one thing to go into your basement because of radar indicated rotation; it's quite another thing to go into your basement because you see a tornado coming for your part of town. 

The only thing the tornado did was scare the poop out of my dogs. (Literally.)

Sorry, dogs. I would have left you out longer at noon had I known there would be a tornado at 5 p.m. which would interrupt your afternoon poop break.

We lived. 

Penny's "Seriously, a tornado?" face after we came upstairs.

Tornado kisses from Pickles in the basement.

"I don't ike it."

I'm going to transcribe exactly what my 3-year-old niece talked about yesterday when I saw her.

She had an elaborate story she told me, about half of which I understood. The other half was in 3-year-old gibberish.

Something about a water bucket, Papa tricking her, and her getting her hair wet. Also, the water was cold.

Little K quote: "I don't ike it."

Me: Little K, who did that to you?

"Papa."

Me: Did Papa do it on purpose?

Little K: "Yeah Papa do it and got my hair wet."

She'll be talking about that water bucket until we go back to the water park next summer.

A certain aunt was standing nearby when the water bucket incident occurred, and a certain aunt stood there and laughed instead of saving her.

That's what aunts are for.

LINED WITH PEOPLE

I'm very, very close to getting to 10,000 blog views.

In fact, this here blog post will probably put me over 10,000.

Cool, dudes!

To celebrate I have a special topic to talk about. It's insightful and thoughtful, just like its author (ha, ha).

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Every year, I look forward to going to my town's parade in July.

This morning, I woke up happy and excited. I got up before 6 a.m., according to my FitBit. I let the dogs out, did laundry, and did some tidying up.

And then around 7, I decided to lay down and rest for just a few minutes.

When I woke up, the clock said 9:15 a.m.

Uh oh! The parade starts at 9:30 a.m. I brushed my hair, let my dogs in, and ran out the door, still wearing what I wore to bed last night.

I went to our usual spot, and looked for my people. Only, I couldn't find my people. I was worried about the parade starting and me missing the first part of it. I like the horses, dammit, and I want to see them!

It turns out, my people moved. When a friend called me and told me to stop and turn around, I was thrown off a little bit.

It didn't help that I had been awake for 15 minutes at that point.

Walking, holding a blanket, talking on the phone, contemplating the concept of changing spots and crossing a street is apparently really hard.

I fell face first into the street.

And guys, not only any street, a street that was LINED WITH PEOPLE because the parade was starting.

Oh Jesus.

Thankfully, the only thing hurt was my ego.

So, the blog post wherein I hit 10,000 views is about how I wiped out in front of a huge crowd of people and made a complete ass of myself.

Aunt Monca is amazing like that.

I got some good candy, thanks to the cute little candy magnets in pink skirts that were sitting on my lap and beside me.

A couple packets of my favorite candy were thrown my way, which helped my ego out in the end.

(Eating candy given to my nieces is considered an Aunt Tax, guys. It's allowed, especially if it's the good kind.)