You Know it Feels Good to be Alive

photo credit: Scott Cook

The Midwest has been having a week with all this crazy-ass weather. Joplin, Missouri is three hours south of us and our heart breaks for that city, while we're incredibly grateful all our friends there were physically unharmed.

Tornado sirens went off in the Kansas City area on Wednesday. Aaron and his coworkers stood in the bathrooms, in the middle of the building, for an hour. Darwin, who was at school, went to the basement music room and watched two episodes of Reading Rainbow.

Griffin, who was home sick, Emerson, the dog and I went to our basement for over an hour.


At the beginning I ran up and down the stairs preparing while the boys sat. First run, bottled water, two cans of Emery's special formula, two clean sippy cups. Second run, shoes for me and Griffin, laptop (haven't updated the hard-drive in a long time, too many precious photo files to lose), cameras, battery packs, flashlights, dog leash. Third run, canned & boxed goods, can opener, prescription medicines.

Yes, I was a Girl Scout. Why do you ask?

After I was done with the running I closed the door. I keep a radio in my sewing area, blared it loud. Shifted furniture around in the basement so I could close a door in case there was flying glass. Pulled out a rag rug to sit on and watched Griffin freak the fuck out and puke for over half an hour, poor kid. He got that nervous tummy from his mama.

There were reports of a tornado touch-down less than two miles from our home but it turned out to be a false report. Local areas were hit, but nothing super-close to us.

And Buddha bless texting and the internet. Seriously, we were able to tell family and friends over a thousand miles away that yes, we are in the basement, yes we are all safe. So very grateful for that technology.

More storms are headed to the Kansas City area this weekend, high hopes of just rain and no funnel action. But water, formula and sippys are still in the basement - just in case.