I'll huff and I'll puff...

Whoa.

Everyone alive out there?

Last's night's wind storm was the worst I remember!

I went to bed at 10 and by 11, I was awoken by the sound of some crazy winds. I slept on and off until about 3, when the real chaos began.

I lay in bed calculating the angle at which the 80 foot tall cottonwood tree we have in our backyard would fall at, when the high speed winds would obviously be blowing it down. My answer was: right on top of our bed! It's only about 40 feet away from our bed, and directly up the hill. I ACTUALLY thought that tree was going to crash down and squish us.

I spent the hour of 3:00-4:00 completely freaking out. With every CRASH on the roof, and every "BANG" against the window, and every CRACK of the tree branches falling to who-knows-where, I was startled. Sometimes I just jumped, like when someone's hiding behind a wall and jumps out and screams at you when you pass. Other times, I'd jump to my feet, find my glasses and open the curtain to see what was happening. A few times I even ran out of the bedroom to avoid the coming danger.

After an hour of this, I heard this massive crash! THAT'S IT!!! I jumped to my feet, grabbed my pillow and headed to the other end of the house to sleep on the couch. Maybe I'd be able to get some sleep there. But I still found myself running to the window every time I heard something sinister.

15 minutes later, Colin emerges from the bedroom with his pillow and a suggestion to sleep on the futon in the piano room. At least it would be quieter in there, as it's on the other side of the house.

It was quieter, and we did eventually manage to get back to sleep after hunting for an alarm clock with batteries (the power went out), until the sound of a waterfall from our overflowing gutters outside the window woke me up at 6 for good. At least it wasn't a scary sound. The wind seemed to have died down by then.

We got ready for work, but before we left, curiosity got the best of Colin and he had to go into the backyard and survey the damage. I watched from the bedroom window.

The BBQ had taken a field trip across the patio, but at least it was still standing.

There were 10 foot long branches littered across the lawn, not to mention the plethera of smaller ones. A war zone!

One of the huge branches was on top of the hot tub, so Colin wanted to move it off.

He grabbed the 5 inch diameter branch and lifted.

Nothing.

He tried harder.

Nothing.

He put his foot on the hot tub cover and yanked the branch. The branch had speared through the brand new hot tub cover!!


As he pulled, more and more branch came, along with some sawdust and styrofoam. There must have been at least 3 feet of it INSIDE the hot tub. There was still water in it though, so it doesn't seem to have injured the hot tub itself. Just the cover that we bought, um, 2 weeks ago for $____!!!!


So, as I stood in the cold wind and rain waiting for my train, and watched the sky light up with pretty arcs of blue and green from exploding transformers around the city, all I could think was...at least we stayed safe.