Not So Much A Good Friday

Yesterday was a day I devoted to scrubbing my frig out, dusting and grocery shopping--dreaming of Ina Garten's Orange Glazed Ham that will grace my Easter feast table...

Most of the day was spent either beating the rain fall, glued to the TV watching "storm mode" or huddling...in of all places Walmart.

Yep huddling in Walmart is what I said!

 I have woke to realize there is no visual effects to being part of a "code black". Which means Walmart locks the doors and instructs its customers that a tornado has been spotted in the area and everyone must gather in the center of the store till an all clear is announced.  Huddling in the center of the store with Walmart mutants is really no fun. They allowed customers to continue shopping which was okay if you were in the market for Huggies diapers, an exersaucer or St. Louis Cardinal paraphernalia; because that is all that was in the center of the huddle zone.  Lucky me the restrooms were in the center cause I needed to pee like a race horse. When I entered the restroom I found around 20 mother and children seeking safety sitting on the nasty bathroom floor, ick! King Ralph moseyed over to electronics to see if the gazillion flat screen TV's were channeled to the weather. [They] "don't turn the TVs to weather in order not to panic the customers". Like a mandated center of the store huddle doesn't ensue panic. Dam, one pre-tween was crying before the wind even started to howl. I don't know about you but hearing my local weatherman tell me Discovery Channel's Storm Chasers came to town this week because they new our area was the hot storm mecca of the week and pointing out the deep red swirled areas on the map is more comforting than a Walmart "code black".  As I stood in the huddle listening to the storm grow in intensity, believing grapefruit size hail was turning my truck into Swiss cheese...turns out there was no hail just the fattest rain drops falling in gallon dumps along with roaring winds.  All this because I wanted some jelly beans.

While King Ralph and I huddled in Walmart we worried about Princess A who was in St. Charles on a party bus celebrating a friend's twenty-first birthday, M at work and D in the city at a restaurant celebrating one of her besties sixteenth birthday. When in "storm mode" mother hen and her rooster want their little chicks close by.  Turns out while our little chicks were fine our communities where hit yet again, neighbors crumbled, airport closed down....  When will this freaky wrath of weather stop? Dear God it's really enough now!  When you can walk away with your life it gives new meaning to Easter blessings.

While yesterday's non-stop storms have passed, birds seem to be singing their morning songs today, we wait...not just for Easter's blessings, its feast of ham, colored eggs and those treasured jelly beans, but MORE STORMS!

(the skies are darking as I type)