Bluegrass Mama

My heart goes out to the people who lost loved ones or their homes in last night’s storms. We were fortunate, with our worst loss a bushy tree between our driveway and the neighbor’s.

The hard part for us was the timing. The worst of the storm was to arrive around midnight. Mr. B, lucky bloke, was safe on the East coast for a business trip. I couldn’t decide if I should go to bed and wait for the weather radio to give me a heart attack when it went off, or to just stay up for the duration. And what about BD?

Fortunately, we recently bought a lovely futon for the basement. I finally told BD to go to sleep there. After watching non-stop weather coverage on TV for awhile, I said, “the heck with it,” turned off the TV (as well as the alarm on the weather radio), and took the other half of the futon for myself. I figured that way I didn’t have to worry about tornado warnings, because I had already sought shelter (complete with flashlights, candles, cell phone and battery-operated radio).

I then had to get up and turn off the battery back-up on the computer, which beeped several times as the lights flickered (well, they’d have flickered if they’d still been on). And I nearly panicked when I suddenly heard water running in the middle of the night till I realized that it was the water softener recharging in the next room. I won’t even mention that BD likes to take her half of the bed out of the middle. So it was not the best night’s sleep.

Nor the longest, as Bootsies (who’s usually confined well away from the bedrooms at night) decided she wanted to curl up with us at oh-dark-hundred-hours. Which might have been fine if she’d gone right to sleep, but she was too happy for that. Have I ever mentioned what a loud purr she has? I finally gave up about 6:30 and got up. Only to eventually discover that BD’s school was closed.

A very large dose of Diet Coke has kept me going so far today. Let’s hope we have a quiet (and early) night tonight.