Weathering the Storm

If you’ve been following the laundry room saga, you know that things didn’t turn out as simple as just popping a door in the wall so we could have a hallway directly from the bottom of the stairs to the spare room. The Boy is an engineer and he can not close his eyes to things done poorly.

So walls came out.

Plumbing has been changed out.

Electricity has been rerun.

This past week, The Boy put in insulation and framed in a new wall. We’re going to gain about six inches in that room by doing things right. BUT. Kitten Thunder does not like all the noise. They are completely over this bit of renovation.

Since they weren’t going to help The Boy, the kittehs were helping me take a nap this afternoon. I’d drifted off on the couch with a grey kitten in my arms and a brown kitten enjoying his own nap on the loveseat. And then…ALARMS!!! I woke up to my phone, The Boy’s work phone, and his personal phone screaming from less than three feet from my head. I managed to read “tornado warning,” grabbed Obi off the loveseat and told Oli to follow me. Which he did. To the top of the stairs.

The Boy was working in the laundry room and they wanted NO part of that.

Their refusal to go downstairs with me gave me enough time to realize that the alarm is not a siren. No need to go to the basement anyway. So I set Obi down and went upstairs to put in my contacts and brush my teeth. And then, SIREN.

Kitten Thunder was in The Boy’s office. I grabbed Oliver and told Obi to follow me. Nope. The Boy was walking up the stairs and I told him that the brown kitten had run into the living room. I heard them arguing about whether everyone had to go into the basement. The Boy won and appeared at the top of the stairs with a mad kitten in his arms.

The cats are both Cheyenne natives. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before – Cheyennites are weather fanatics. After the 2011 storm that wrecked my car, Facebook was full of pictures of cuts and bruises from people that were out looking at the sky when the hail started. And so…

TornadoTV. Obi watched the lower Jeff Channel.

Oliver watched from the lower Lilac Bush Channel, where they generally watch Doves Eating Seeds.

After there was no tornado to be seen, Oliver decided to inspect The Boy’s building abilities by using this water tower as a chin scratcher.

The sirens stopped and the warning expired just as The Boy ran out of things to keep his interest and went back to the laundry room. I set Kitten Thunder free and went to check out the damage.

There was some high powered, horizontal precipitation. The puddle in our bathroom  came all the way to the hall.

We got several inches of marble-sized hail at our house. The tomatoes were on the right side of the house for once. I’m giving up on ever growing zucchini.

As I was taking this picture, a big pit bull came running up the walk toward me. She was very excited about being free. I talked to her for a couple minutes until her frantic owner, whose fence blew over, came down the alley.

Oh! And then this happened.

Because whenever our tornado siren goes off, we immediately also get a flash flood warning…thunderstorms, you know. A local posted this picture of EMT Brian Mills pulling a raccoon out of the flood water. After this, he wrapped it up in a towel and held it for a while – which is a step past what even I would do for a wild critter. What a guy.

Oliver just walked in to my office. Weren’t we taking a nap?

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OutTV: Lonesome Dove

This evening, while The Boy was cooking our dinner, Obi and I were watching OutTV. In the alley by our house there were about 30 sparrows. They were all taking a dust bath. I guess the Thunder Cafe is now part of a spa/resort.

As we watched, a dove strolled from where he was picking at seed underneath Thunder Cafe. He walked down the alley. Between the sparrows. Once in a while he would stop and look at one of them. Eventually he got through the group and turned to walk, alone, down the sidewalk.

Lonesome dove.

***

My head is kind of a whirlwind right now. The new roof on my old house was destroyed by the hail storm. I had the insurance company come out and they gave me a check which had to be mailed to a special branch of my bank in Ohio so they could sign it over to me. This was two days before my house was supposed to sell. But now it isn’t selling until next Friday so I had time to find a roofer. He starts tomorrow. The check from my first new roof hasn’t even been cashed yet.

Meanwhile, my car was also totaled. So this week I had to go find out if there’s a new car that I don’t hate. Found some options. And so I agreed to the settlement from my insurance – now would be a great time to point out that I was planning to switch to liability only in September so EXCELLENT timing!

And here’s where it gets complicated: I don’t want to buy a new car until my house is sold, to get my check for the car I have to mail them the keys, the people coming to get my car aren’t coming until after next Friday and the paperwork all has the mileage from four days ago and every day I drive I add another ten miles. At some point I’m going to either have two cars (if I use my roof check to buy a car and then my car check to buy a roof) or no car.

Any of these things is complicated enough, without doing them all at the same time. On top of this logistical trickiness, I am now feeling guilt. Irrational guilt about hurting the feelings of my house and my car by getting rid of them. It would make me so sad to have to drive past my beloved Saturn in a new car. It would hurt his feelings, I know it would!

***

And now that I’ve proven myself insane: it is Thunder Thursday! Today we bring you Tommy, the king of crabby. Tommy is my grandparents’ cat and these pictures were taken by my aunt while she was in town in June. And here’s the thing about Crabby Tommy – we, the people he is mean to, are the people who picked him out and gave him to my grandpa for Father’s Day. He was the sweetest kitten ever – he even kissed my uncle’s nose and purred.

Boy, did he have us fooled.

I guess as long as he’s nice to my grandparents, that is all that matters.

"Bags are for the birds. Unless they have birds on them."

"Be sure to get my good side."

"You didn't think you were leaving without me, did you?"