Storm Junkies

          I am  sitting here behind the glare of my laptop in the early am hours of 30 March 2011 as my wife softly snores under the cover next to me.  Beside the soft hum of my ceiling fan, I can hear the distant rumble of thunder and the dripping of rain water from my roof splashing on my patio just outside the french doors of my bedroom... Other than those sounds, eerily quiet...  I have already posted my facebook friends around 5:15am or so inquiring of their safety  with only a couple responding thus far.  Is this my 'post storm thoughts' or am I looking for a rainbow during a pause in the middle of the storm?   My laptop tells me that according to Channel 31's Sky Tracker Radar, I am at a pause in the middle of a strong line of a low pressure cold front that is pushing in from the northwest.  There is a moisture tap from the Gulf of Mexico  that feeds the cold front throwing things into a North Eastern movement.  All of this causes excitement deep inside of me as I watch in awe the different colors on the radar screen...  The green color I see mostly is ok.  It is just drizzle or light rain we basically accept and recognize also as cloud cover.   Then the yellow smiles at you with those crimson red centers indicating serious rain fall accompanied by winds... Inter laced with all of these vibrant colors, the radar screen depicts the dark purple cells inside of the red cells surrounded by the yellow color that is still bracketed by the green that something serious is brewing in the atmosphere!  I am compelled to investigate closer... typing frantically on my laptop, I locate my precise location on the map by zooming in and finding my house!  Marked!  I then zoom out, activate the video and watch as the cold fronts slide to the Southeast intersects with and Gulf moisture tap moving North and I hold my breath as the vibrant colors dance toward my house.  Inside of the dark purple cells lurks extreme danger...  Hail storms, wind shears, winds in excess of 60 + mph, and of course the dreaded tornado!   I watch and wait in anticipation...

          So let me set the excitement scale for you here.  We have heard of low pressure and high pressure.  Yes?  Ok. It is the barometer reading... let me see if I might simplify this from my perspective.  Hunters and fishermen understand this concept well as do those of us that have aches and pains...  We  simple feel it.  As High pressure dominates us, we are somewhat slow and sluggish.  Winds from the east, fishing is least?  Heard that?  Well, in lesser life forms like fish to livestock the high pressure embraces them kinda like a bear hug.  Consistent pressure over every square inch of their body pushes in making them somewhat inactive, or dormant.  Fish do not bite, cows and other livestock start laying down in the pastures.   Even our pets become lethargic just as we do as we fall victim to this unseen pressure wondering why our joints hurt.   As the low front pushes through becoming dominant,  the old wives tale about winds from the west is best  kicks in  as we observe and even feel a distinct change.  Fish bite like crazy, live stock begins to move, hardly anything is dormant, and storm junkies like me looks like Garfield with their faces glued to some window panel gazing outside.  Simply stated, we feel excited about the unknown! 

          With me so far?  Let me share with you my feelings on serious weather and that dark purple cell that is dancing precociously toward my home.

          I start pacing.  My ever calm wife is watching TV in the media room at the other end of our four bedroom home.  I'm watching TV too!  The one in my bedroom is on the local news station and is constantly being switched back and forth between that station and the Weather Channel.  Guess where my laptop is??  You got it... On some website hosting local weather.  Now, understand my actions are being orchestrated by this rapid transition from high pressure to low pressure, the fact that I'm being bombarded by weather information from at least three sources as well as a touch of mental imbalance on my part from some unknown weather mishap in my distant past!  Now I'm pacing back and forth from the master bedroom to the media room wondering just why my wife is not the least bit frantic!  "Why should I be," she calmly ask me.  "I have you to take up my slack," as she never misses a word of her television program while playing some game on her laptop. I grumble something about "I would rather be in my car running from a stupid tornado, than let it eat me up in this house," kinda nonsense.  Back to the bedroom I pace to further dissect weather information.  Just in time for a weather bulletin!  Oh great.   Now I'm told this Super Cell is packing winds in excess of 70mph and should be knocking on my door in 15 minutes!  I am NOT limited to the inside of the house now.  I wonder as I wander into the carport to gaze realtime at the constant lightning as the outside darkness ceases to exist because of the weather activity!  I am amazed... Gazing through pine trees three times the size of telephone poles looking for what?  That dark funnel cloud, hail stones, side ways rain?   I suddenly find it as lightning hits directly across the street, dampens my underwear and I bravely scurry my chunky self  back to the safety of the indoors. 

           I'm safe again, but my mind still entertains my weakness...  "Be nice if you had a storm shelter built in this house, huh Rod!"  I felt compelled to tell my wife, "I sure wish we had a storm shelter, honey!"  Doesn't even glance or acknowledge me.  Just plays on her laptop and listens to her TV program...  Again that voice in my head tells me, "those are large pine trees that could fall across this end of the house and that big oak tree could smush you at the other end of the house, you do know that huh buddy?"  Ok.  I was told by some elementary teacher that those people that talk to themselves were either listening to the devil or were crazy.  I plead the 5th here.  I'm almost frantic now.

          It goes on.  This cell passes... I have survived!  We didn't even lose electricity or cable service.  Why was I so frantic?  Well, I've told you..  The low pressure front was driving my actions.  Fish are now biting, wildlife is now moving and I am back on the laptop anticipating the next move this system is going to throw at me.  surrounded by yellow radar, I began to anticipate bed time... I can deal with that...  My wife comes into my situation room also known as the master bedroom shaking her head as it seems I never cease to amaze her, but also to prepare herself for a nights sleep.   I give into her calm manner and respond like wise.  I calculate without accuracy that the next cell that could threaten me was far enough Southwest of us so I began to prepare for bed.  Maybe I could 'go to sleep it' before it gets here and starts consuming my thoughts.  I take my medicine, brush my teeth, potty and dress for bed but not in my typical boxer/brief drawers.  No, not with storms coming and just in case that yet spawned tornado comes to my house while I'm asleep, opens my french doors from the patio to my bedroom, snatches me from under the covers and sends me through its powerful funnel to deposit my body in some field a mile away??  I will NOT be naked!  I put on socks, along with my boxer/briefs, long pants of the jogging sort and of course a heavy tee shirt.  Simply will not be captured, executed and left to be found naked by anyone...  I just simply refuse to accept the fact or think about the results that if a tornado did actually seize me and hurl me through the fury of her tortured self that even if I was dressed in body armor wrapped in 100 mph duct tape, I would be discovered.  They would still find a fat bald guy about a mile away from where i should have been in some field;  Naked!

          Rest at peace Storm Junkies..  I survived another round of mother natures cleansing...  All of the facebook friends I love are still with me.  As thunderstorms push through my area of Louisiana, I am told it is snowing in St Louis...  And yes, I know there are no Rainbows at night.  Except the rainbow colors of weather radar as it dances across my laptop computer.