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cimoreneRight now among H&M's sweatshirts with fake vintage logos is a mauve pullover that says "Tornado Alley". Even though I laughed when morningfine pointed it out at the Chav H&M in the mall (newly converted to a departmentful mini-store with signs in the window that say SORRY, GUYS, THIS WON'T BE YOUR FAVORITE STORE ANYMORE and HI LADIES, WELCOME TO YOUR NEW SECOND FAVORITE STORE or something like that which is like, even if the 2-story H&M directly across the street from you were in fact someone's favorite store, would the mini-branch that doesn't have any unique stock be the second favorite? No. Surely the second would be some other store like Zara, Vero Moda, Seppälä, or Lindex, depending if you're a posh totty, a mall-variety femme, a teenie, or a dowdy middle-aged person)...
...anyway the point is that, as I told Chi and Bell at the time, I miss tornados. I mean, not tornados themselves - I've seen enough funnel clouds up very close forever probably - but I miss tornado weather.
I grew up in tornado alley, northwest Alabama, and my extended family in the Kansas City area are at the other end of it. Tornado weather is old hat, and so is tornado damage up close (although it's never happened to my parents' house, it did happen to various friends, churchmates, and Girl Scout troop members). There's something cosy about squeezing into the crawlspace with the family, even though the crawlspace, dating as it does from about 1910, is a literal one, dirt-floored and not quite tall enough to stand up in. Tornado warnings were times to huddle down there with radios, books, blankets, card games and pets on top of isolated islands of carpeting like picnic blankets, surrounded by boxes and old bits of broken furniture and mutilated bicycles and ancient portable radiators left there by the previous tenants of the house.
There's no interior route to the crawlspace at my parents' house. When the tornado sirens sounded, we'd grab things up and rush outside to the back deck, down the stairs and around under it, to the door built into the foundations of the house. The opening to the little tunnel behind the wooden deck leading to the crawlspace door is only four feet tall or so, easy to bump your head, and in the thunderstorms that sometimes precede tornado weather, the grass and dirt might turn muddy and slippery. The sirens are overbearing, loud and urgent, and the pitch in combination with the electrical zing in the air and the incredibly strong wind is enough to raise goosebumps on your arms. The air in a tornado warning - which means a funnel cloud, lowering, has been spotted in the vicinity, as opposed to a tornado watch, which means only that conditions are ideal for funnel clouds to form - is sizzlingly electric, sharp and ionized, windy and biting, often hot air with cold-edged wind almost strong enough to knock you over, blowing gusts of damp that don't fall directly from the solid masses of low-hanging dark clouds. Stumbling outside, down through the dark tunnel to the crawlspace barefoot, wrapped in blankets and whatever you grabbed and carrying a panicky cat or a dog, shouting back and forth to people still in the house with the sirens and the wind drowning the words out before they made it back to the door.
The fizzy crackle of the radio reception from under the house. The damp, mildewy, dusty smell of the dirt. Driving in the car, watching the funnel cloud lower to the ground on Skyland Boulevard. Once I was in Kansas for the summer when a tornado hit (actually hit, not just threatened). My cousin had a brand-new kitten. Her mother and sister were across the street at the neighbor's house when the sirens started. It wasn't near evening, but the sky was the blackest I'd seen that time of day. My favorite aunt and uncle's old house had a finished basement, with, unfortunately, a high-up narrow window at one end, which made it not completely safe. My uncle shooed me and my cousin downstairs with a pile of comforters and pillows each, and stuffed us in the tiny utility closet, packed in on either side of the hot water boiler in the dark, surrounded by pillows, with the kitten on our laps, and closed the door after us. There was barely room for feet, knees, two pubescent girls and a cat. He ran back upstairs after one more thing - about five times, in between tacking a blanket over the window at the other end of the basement, trying to push the pinball machine in the way. He ran upstairs looking for batteries. Then he remembered a window that was left open, and another. The funnel cloud passed directly over their house, close but not touching down. It sounded like a freight train on the ground floor of the house, but it didn't destroy anything.
I'll probably buy the sweatshirt later this week, if they still have it in my size.
morningfine pointed it out at the Chav H&M in the mall (newly converted to a departmentful mini-store with signs in the window that say SORRY, GUYS, THIS WON'T BE YOUR FAVORITE STORE ANYMORE and HI LADIES, WELCOME TO YOUR NEW SECOND FAVORITE STORE or something like that which is like, even if the 2-story H&M directly across the street from you were in fact someone's favorite store, would the mini-branch that doesn't have any unique stock be the second favorite? No. Surely the second would be some other store like Zara, Vero Moda, Seppälä, or Lindex, depending if you're a posh totty, a mall-variety femme, a teenie, or a dowdy middle-aged person)......anyway the point is that, as I told Chi and Bell at the time, I miss tornados. I mean, not tornados themselves - I've seen enough funnel clouds up very close forever probably - but I miss tornado weather.
I grew up in tornado alley, northwest Alabama, and my extended family in the Kansas City area are at the other end of it. Tornado weather is old hat, and so is tornado damage up close (although it's never happened to my parents' house, it did happen to various friends, churchmates, and Girl Scout troop members). There's something cosy about squeezing into the crawlspace with the family, even though the crawlspace, dating as it does from about 1910, is a literal one, dirt-floored and not quite tall enough to stand up in. Tornado warnings were times to huddle down there with radios, books, blankets, card games and pets on top of isolated islands of carpeting like picnic blankets, surrounded by boxes and old bits of broken furniture and mutilated bicycles and ancient portable radiators left there by the previous tenants of the house.
There's no interior route to the crawlspace at my parents' house. When the tornado sirens sounded, we'd grab things up and rush outside to the back deck, down the stairs and around under it, to the door built into the foundations of the house. The opening to the little tunnel behind the wooden deck leading to the crawlspace door is only four feet tall or so, easy to bump your head, and in the thunderstorms that sometimes precede tornado weather, the grass and dirt might turn muddy and slippery. The sirens are overbearing, loud and urgent, and the pitch in combination with the electrical zing in the air and the incredibly strong wind is enough to raise goosebumps on your arms. The air in a tornado warning - which means a funnel cloud, lowering, has been spotted in the vicinity, as opposed to a tornado watch, which means only that conditions are ideal for funnel clouds to form - is sizzlingly electric, sharp and ionized, windy and biting, often hot air with cold-edged wind almost strong enough to knock you over, blowing gusts of damp that don't fall directly from the solid masses of low-hanging dark clouds. Stumbling outside, down through the dark tunnel to the crawlspace barefoot, wrapped in blankets and whatever you grabbed and carrying a panicky cat or a dog, shouting back and forth to people still in the house with the sirens and the wind drowning the words out before they made it back to the door.
The fizzy crackle of the radio reception from under the house. The damp, mildewy, dusty smell of the dirt. Driving in the car, watching the funnel cloud lower to the ground on Skyland Boulevard. Once I was in Kansas for the summer when a tornado hit (actually hit, not just threatened). My cousin had a brand-new kitten. Her mother and sister were across the street at the neighbor's house when the sirens started. It wasn't near evening, but the sky was the blackest I'd seen that time of day. My favorite aunt and uncle's old house had a finished basement, with, unfortunately, a high-up narrow window at one end, which made it not completely safe. My uncle shooed me and my cousin downstairs with a pile of comforters and pillows each, and stuffed us in the tiny utility closet, packed in on either side of the hot water boiler in the dark, surrounded by pillows, with the kitten on our laps, and closed the door after us. There was barely room for feet, knees, two pubescent girls and a cat. He ran back upstairs after one more thing - about five times, in between tacking a blanket over the window at the other end of the basement, trying to push the pinball machine in the way. He ran upstairs looking for batteries. Then he remembered a window that was left open, and another. The funnel cloud passed directly over their house, close but not touching down. It sounded like a freight train on the ground floor of the house, but it didn't destroy anything.
I'll probably buy the sweatshirt later this week, if they still have it in my size.
(no subject)
Date: 25 Aug 2009 02:35 pm (UTC)I was in Kohls while the sirens were going off. They herded us all to the customer service area.