Tornadoes & Halloween
I woke up to my roommate Annemarie telling me we need to take cover this morning before realizing the blare of sirens through my window like a hyperactive alarm clock with no snooze button.
The extent of natural disasters I've experienced culminates in the very mild California earthquakes that have only felt a little shaky like someone is just rocking your whole room to sleep. So hearing sirens intended for me was a little off-setting. Grabbing what I could, and realizing that I needed to be better prepared for this kind of thing, we went down into the hallways space of no windows (because that sounded a lot better than the basement) and waited for the sirens to dissipate.
Part of me was kind of fearful. Honestly the only understanding I have of tornadoes comes from the movie "Twister" which I've always seen as a very exaggerated only-happens-in-movies drama of what it might be like. This is not really a common thing anyways in middle Tennessee. In Annemarie's five years of living here, this is her first tornado warning. But you never know. I tried to replace that fear with faith, believing that everything would be completely ok. Which it was. I think the scary part was just never even understanding the affects of a tornado, not really knowing what that would mean to be in one. This is something we never did drills for in California.
Soon enough, the sirens got lower and all that was left was the gloomy sky outside and drops of rain and occasional thunder.
But it's still spooky enough to remind me of Halloween and frightening occasions. So here's a little throwback to the ultimate Halloween party by the Hamilton house this last October.
I actually showed up a little late (I get off work late on Friday nights) but immediately changed into my Deb costume with Janna being a spot-on Napoleon (she even had all the catchphrases) and Annemarie and Adam representing an accurate Starla and Rex Kwon Do.
The house was decorated (those decorations lasted long after the party ended — I found cobwebs for weeks), we had a fire going, some toilet paper bowling, pumpkin carving, tots, and a troll to burn. I mean literally. We've had this troll for over a year from a previous roommate and it even had eyes that glowed red when you plugged it in. It was also about four feet tall and made of some kind of tree trunk with a gourd as a face. Not sure why we kept it so long — mostly for pranking people — but it seemed appropriate to burn it on Halloween instead of throw it in the garbage. It wasn't until after that we learned it was meant to ward off evil spirits :o So far I haven't felt bad spirits coming after us. Let's hope it stays that way. Plus we got an epic burning video below #pyros.
What am I going to do the rest of the day aside from hoping there's no more scary tornado warnings you might ask? Whatever I feel like. Well, actually I need to go to work.
Also, happy first day of March!
