The Tornado Siren

It is no secret Polly is a bit of a weather nerd. In the 14 days we've been here, she's had plenty of opportunities to embrace her passion for high and low pressure systems. On Christmas it was warmer here than where my brother lives in Boca Raton (80 degrees). It is supposed to be a high of 40 on Sunday, which is fine by me, because I'm kinda sorta tired of warm temps. Plus the rain comes out of nowhere. NOWHERE! 

I'm realizing now how spoiled Arizonans are when it comes to such things. We don't need to check the weather on an hourly basis to see if an umbrella is needed. Which reminds me, I really should pick one of those things up. 

Anyway, back to Polly. Yesterday after mild temps, the clouds started to darken, a little bit of water was spitting from the sky and Polly began checking for tornado alerts. She announced to all of us, if there is an issue we were to immediately drop what we were doing and go huddle in the hall bathroom. "Please make sure you've unpacked it by then," was my answer. To be fair, while walking around Home Depot the other day, she alerted us to where their storm shelter was too, so this type of announcement wasn't new to us. 

As the clouds grew darker, she started asking my opinion. "Do those look like tornado clouds?" I wasn't sure what answer she was looking for. The only tornado I'd ever lived through happened at night. And besides, I am not sure what a "tornado cloud" looks like. 

"Possibly," I offered. Polly was delighted. She ran around closing windows, re-instructing us on how to take shelter if the moment should arise. "Don't forget to unpack your bathroom," I replied as I worked on unloading boxes in the kitchen. 

An hour later, the drama subsided. Polly, disappointed, called me to the window ("We don't open the doors during tornado warnings, Mom." "Dear, I'm pretty sure there wasn't a warning." "Don't mess with this level of danger, Mom.") to show me where the clouds are parting and the sun was shining. Marty hadn't left the garage, where he was putting up shelving. Buckaroo was still assembling the kitchen chairs. We now have silverware in a drawer but the coffee maker is MIA. The hall bath still hadn't been unpacked, I guess allowing us to sit on boxes if we were going to hunker down in there at a later date.