Summer weather

Summer weather is amazing to me.
Until it turns for the worse.

Some people love thunderstorms. Some people love tornados. I am not a fan of either. Lightning isn’t awesome to me. Thunder doesn’t scare me, but I don’t love having it as background noise. I don’t love sleeping during thunderstorms. I don’t love going out in thunderstorms. Yes, my flowers and grass love the rain, but I don’t love them. I may be forgetful sometimes, but I can handle the duty of providing water for my flowers.

My husband loves thunderstorms. He loves lightning. He would love to be a storm chaser. He loves standing on the deck and watching the storm roll in. He loves peeking out the window at the lightning. He loves trying to capture the phenomena on camera.

I’m not scared of thunderstorms, but I don’t love them. I see the potential of their fury. I see them as a possible doom. I think of them as a means to a nasty disaster known as tornados. I let my husband tell me when to be worried. I let him decide when I should be scared. I trust him with my life. I trust him to take care of us.

When I’m traveling, I still trust him to control my worry. I send him text messages to find out what county I’m in. I tell him what the TV tells me and trust him to translate that for me. When things change and the county I’m in is upgraded to a tornado warning, I update him. I don’t even get scared when he sends me a text message that says, “What?!? Are you in the basement???” And then when I say no, he calls me and the first words out of his mouth are, “Are you ok? Are you scared?” I reason with him and tell him that I haven’t heard any sirens and the TV just went out. It wasn’t until later that I realized back home a tornado warning means sirens. No wonder he asked if I was in a basement! And back home our county doesn’t include what seems like hundreds of towns. Back home I know if our county is in a warning, it means business. Here, the warning was given and our town didn’t sound the sirens. When the front desk called to tell me where to go for a tornado warning, she informed me that I would be able to hear the town sirens. I may not understand the weather ways of this town in Wisconsin, but I know that the strong winds and tornados didn’t come close to me. I know that it was a little nerve-wracking for a couple of hours, but I can handle the rain. I can handle the steady drum of water hitting the pavement because that means that the lightning and thunder has stopped. No more 10-second pauses between light and noise. I can handle the rain because the weather shows me that the severe weather has moved on.

Baby Leger…welcome to summer weather!