Weathering the Storm

I'm currently tucked up in the corner of my second story apartment, having weathered the pelting rains and seventy mile winds of the past few days.  There are warnings active until 10PM, but as of this moment it feels like everything has subsided, and for that I am grateful.  Of course, we aren't completely out of the woods as the rain is still coming, and continual flooding is likely.  The maintenance man encouraged me to park farther up the hill, as my apartment is right next to the little pond, which could flood up into the lot.

The worst came Saturday night with the phone warnings of a possible tornado, and the alert to "take cover now".  I was with friends, watching Mortdecai (in case you were wondering, this is the Johnny Depp heist film which you can definitely skip) when the alerts came in, so we turned off the television and snuggled up on the floor in the middle of the living room, as far from the windows as we could get.  Eventually the alert was called off, and once the rain had slowed a bit, I headed back to little Stella, certain that she was shivering underneath my bed, where she had taken to hiding off and on lately, storm or no storm.

I was surprised by the carnage in our complex.  It's a very woodsy place, loaded with trees, many of which were uprooted.  There was a downed tree almost completely blocking the passage to my place, and there were loads of trees who's branches had been peeled off, revealing the tender wood beneath.
There were roof tiles and pieces of trees littering the grass, and a couple of cars had been hit by tumbled trees.  It was no tornado, but it was more significant than anything I had experienced lately.

Today brought more rain, though without the winds, and more shivering from Stella.  I'd gone up to Round Rock to visit my folks and gotten caught in the storm on the way back (incidentally cars driving 60 miles an hour during such conditions, the slickness of the road is not the only reason to slow the fuck down.  It's also courteous to the safety of your fellow traveller's because you are pelting them with a lot less torrents of water at fifty miles an hour than you are at sixty-five as you rush to get past us).

Currently, little Stella is curled at my feet, and if I can get her to go outside (she doesn't like getting wet in the best of circumstances) we'll probably pop up some corn and watch a suspense film before returning to work tomorrow.