Last Friday, Travis had to lecture at Midwestern University in Downers Grove. He lectures there once a month on ob/gyn related things. While he’s there, he usually meets up with his parents or a friend for dinner before heading home. This past week, he visited with our friends, Jeff and Bee. By the time he was thinking of heading home, there were tornado warnings by us. Call me crazy, but driving through tornadic winds when you don’t really have to sounds like a bad idea. I encouraged Travis to spend the night. Since Taryn was in Wisconsin visiting her boyfriend, Wolfe, and Trent was with his buddy, Sam, I was flying solo with the animals. I told Travis our standard joke, that his next wife will encourage him to drive home so she can collect life insurance. On the other hand, I actually like him, so he should stay.

No sooner did I end that phone call than the winds and rain from hell started pelting the house. By the time the winds really picked up though, the news had ended the tornado warning. Weird. We had massive amounts of rain coming horizontally at the house. We have always had problems with small amounts of water coming in around some of the old sliding glass doors during heavy rains, but on Friday, the rain was coming in all the old doors and one of the new doors. I was running around putting beach towels at the base of every door, cursing the house with sliders all over the back of the house. I have never seen so much rain! As soon as I got towels at the last slider, I went back to the first to replace the wet towel with a dry one. I was also cursing that I was alone in my battle, even though I knew it was best. Misery loves company. Of course, the dogs were freaking out, because, well, horizontal rain. That’s not normal. And my geriatric dogs only like normal. And it’s not normal for me to be running around with towels, swearing. I know that many of you may think that the last part is normal, but it’s really not. 

Then, just like that, the rain and wind stopped. I collected the soaking towels and put half of them in the machine (I had more than one load), but didn’t dare start the machine because I was afraid that all that rain had overwhelmed the sewer system, and my machine water would back-up into my house. And I had no towels left for clean-up. Also, we regularly lose electricity here and I hate when I am running the machine and the electricity cuts out. That night seemed like a good candidate for a loss of electricity. 

After sleeping on the couch a bit with the dogs to calm them down, I went to bed. Around 4am, I was awakened by deafening winds and a muted crash. Turns out, the winds from hell had returned without the rain. I never definitively figured out what the noise came from, because somehow I had slept through my outdoor umbrella coming down and the tiles in my patio table being picked up and dropped on the porch. I went into my reading room by the kitchen and looked out. I decided that I needed to remove the remaining tiles before they were flung at the house. So, in my sleeping tank top and inappropriately short shorts, I went out to remove the rest of the tiles. I’m not sure what the winds got up to that night, but it was COLD out there. I ran back into the house to keep warm. I was looking out at our pergola from the relative safety of the house, and I didn’t think it looked good, because the wind had opened the  canopy about a quarter of the way, and it was blowing upward against the frame in a dangerous looking way. As I was contemplating this, the side of the pergola that wasn’t screwed down began to levitate. YIKES! Then it made some bad noises as it bent from the wind, because the other side was firmly screwed to the deck. I ran back outside, still inappropriately dressed for the weather, and pulled it back to the deck. After I got it down, I ran to the kitchen to get something to push the canopy back closed. I grabbed one of our heavy duty grill spatulas and went back into the wind to pound on the canopy. I broke the spatula trying to move the canopy. It was clearly on the verge of trying to levitate again, so I ran into the house, grabbed a jacket (I was FREEZING) and a folding chair and went back out to close the canopy. Since the frame bent, the canopy didn’t want to budge. Awesome! So, there I am, on the porch, in a light coat and short shorts, with one foot on a folding chair, the other foot on the grill, hanging over the edge of the porch, in roaring winds, trying to slam the canopy closed. At that exact point, it occurred to me that perhaps I should allow nature to take the pergola and twist it around at will, because if I was blown off the porch (which seemed like a distinct possibility at that point) nobody would find me for hours. My phone was safely tucked in the house, so I couldn’t call anyone even if I remained conscious. Also at that exact moment, the canopy gave way and closed. I wasn’t as worried about the pergola as I was that it twisting in the wind would shatter the slider next to it. And, while I’m in favor of replacing that slider, I would prefer not to have it shatter during a storm, thus ruining things inside the house. 

After I closed the canopy, I went back inside to find tie wraps to keep it closed. Somehow, I had an exact vision of where they were, and they were actually there!! Wow! See Mom, I do know what is in that drawer!! The next half hour was filled with me running out to close the gas lines to the grill and firepit, again on a chair, but at least under the porch, (why isn’t there a shut off inside!), and then venturing back out to lay down anything that remained standing, because it was clear to me that everything was coming down one way or another. 

Not knowing what that storm had done to other parts of the Midwest, I thought that I had had a bad night. Now, all four legs of the pergola are screwed down and the umbrellas remain laying down. I think they are broken from the wind anyway. I had trouble falling back asleep, so when Travis came home around noon, I was back in bed. 

I don’t know if anyone else had a fun night. I’m just glad that the neighbors are unlikely to have seen me because they were tucked in their houses and beds at 4 am. I would like to say that I would do something different, but I probably wouldn’t. Let’s hope there aren’t any pictures! Have a great week everyone!