I’ve always been a dissenter. You say up. I say down. You want to eat there. I want to eat here. Even if I am squelching the part of me that wants to go against the grain by saying things I never mean like “it doesn’t matter to me” (just so you know, it pretty much ALWAYS matters to me. I’m difficult like that. [You should also know that when I say it doesn’t matter, it is me trying to make nice, so don’t think it’s some sort of passive aggressive move to catch you in the wrong. It’s being done so that I can stretch myself and become some kind of better person. You should relish the words and take a moment to let them really soak into your pores…”Kim is attempting to grow. What a breath of fresh air”…something along those lines]).
I’ve made some strides to not completely buck the system in the past few years. Take for instance the attempt I made to embrace yellow. My lovely, beautiful, fashion forward friend, Jenn, instructed us all in the importance of yellow last summer. “Use it to layer!” “Get at least one good layering piece in yellow!” She was right of course because yellow was ubiquitous last year and it’s still hanging out nicely in 08, although I think it has for sure been relegated to layering only now (I tried to buy a really awesome cropped yellow jacket that would have been the ‘it’ item of my wardrobe for 2007 but Jud asked me how many fish I’d caught that day and swore that he would never be married to the Gordon’s fisherman). Is this year white on white? Is that thing? Jenn will have to inform us all because not only am I not in the loop, but I’m not even in Dallas anymore, where the trend was impossible to ignore.
Fashion aside, whenever people go crazy for stuff, I just want to take all of their drama and shove it right back down their throats.
Like yesterday, when all of the forecasts were gloom and doom for the evening. I was all “pish posh these people can keep their crazy predicting and crystal ball antics to themselves. I’ll just wait and see what happens, thankyouverymuch.” And then, while we had Gideon in the bathtub, every channel left regular programming to tell us about the WEATHER and the ROTATION and the COUPLETS. We only got him out of bed once last night, but we were up intermittently to keep the water in the sump hole from flooding the basement (gallons and gallons were scooped out of that hole and poured down the drain. Thanks for nothing imaginary sump pump!).
The weather people kept putting up these ridiculous graphics of tornadoes spinning wherever the red parts and the green parts were parallel. And I get it. I understand that those spots are the most likely spots for tornadoes to form. But IT DOESN’T MEAN THEY ACTUALLY TOUCHED DOWN. It’s just an indication that the mix is right for it. So, at one point, having given in to the sheer terror of the forecasters, I actually passed on the information that there were four tornadoes being tracked. People, that is a lot of tornadoes. The destruction would have been huge.
Let’s see, now. In the light of a new day, how much destruction was actually done in those four spots? Mmmm, none. That’s right none. The place where the tornado actually hit wasn’t even really being discussed until after it was hit. And all of this is not to take away from the tragedy that actually occurred. It’s just that all this crying wolf makes me so much more skeptical of believing them later. Once again these unpredictable skies prove that God is controlling the wind and the rain. That He will decide whose life will be demanded of them today. That He remains the constant.
I’m not advocating running out onto your front lawn to stare at the ‘nados and scratch your behind while you pray that God protects you. I believe in taking appropriate precautions. I wear my seat belt. I’m just saying let’s all take a breath and stop asking questions like “shouldn’t those Boy Scouts have been evacuated since we knew that bad storms were coming?” That’s just so totally out of line. If I hear a reporter ask it one more time, I think I might rip my hair out. We live in a place where tornadoes occur. We don’t stop our lives in the off chance that one might touch down in the very place we were about to go. Soldier on, fellow tornado alley dwellers. Keep going to your events. Feel free to stay put in the place where you are if the weather means you shouldn’t go outside for a while. But don’t second guess yourself if you get caught in bad weather while you’re in the midst of life. And don’t cancel your life in the off chance that something horrible might happen. Try just living instead.
In fact, you should probably take up sailing.
“I sail! I’m sailing!”
I do better with storm prediction by sticking two of my fingers in the air and guessing than one of the forcasters here in Omaha does, (the one that always wears a flower) and he gets paid big bucks. Really, I think that he would do a much better job if he actually got outside instead of looking at the computer screen all the time, of course wouldn’t we all.
I agree with your “evacuation” piece. Matt Lauer (whom I don’t watch but pulled the video piece off MSN) was asking this woman in Cedar Rapids, IA (who appeared to be single with 9 kids) if she felt that she had enough warning to leave her home when the waters were rising. HELLO – water rising usually means that it might flood your premises. They had been told that the river was going to crest. And also “how was she feeling after losing all she owned”. Again – I’m sorry but all 9 of her kiddos and herself had escaped injury.
It just irked me that he made it sound like the city/the state of Iowa/the country should have done more to prepare for the possible flooding of her home – sometimes we have to figure these things out on our own!
I’m so with you Cheryl! Personal responsibilty is so out of fashion these days.