SPM - #28

I'm just gonna call it what it is today - Self Portrait Monday. Because this was last week's SPT topic, but I was so stinkin' busy with Halloween crap that I didn't do much posting last week. So, we were supposed to focus on #28 of our list of 100 Facts About Ourselves, and mine is: I'm really scared of tornadoes:

Isn't that picture freaky? I guess it hit Miami. I don't know when. But that's downtown Miami.

No, I don't live in Tornado Alley. I've never seen one in real life. It all stemmed from a Reader's Digest article that I read when I was 8 years old. My great-grandma always had a subscription to Reader's Digest, and whenever I was taking a break from gardening (She would pay us $5 an hour, each, to help her garden. Isn't that generous? She wasn't a rich lady; she was just generous), I would go into her house, which was painted light turquoise on the inside, and read the Reader's Digest. What can I say? I've always been a reader. To me, reading the Reader's Digest was more of a reward than getting a cold ding-dong, twix, or Coke out of her fridge. Parenthetically, we got a new fridge a few months ago, and it has a freezer drawer at the bottom, and it reminds me of my great-grandma's fridge, which had a freezer drawer at the bottom. I think of her whenever I get into my freezer, which is a lot. :)



So, one time, I was reading this article about this horrible tornado that had recently leveled some town in the plains somewhere, and it was so horrific, the things that these families went through, and that was it. I was scared to death. I started getting nightmares every night about tornadoes. Every time it got a little windy outside, I would tense up and worry that it would turn into a tornado. I started drilling my friend, Suzie, who had moved to Idaho from Minnesota, about what they looked like, what kinds of conditions created them, etc. She was the one that first told me that the sky turns greenish when one is forming, and that they sound like trains when they're going by. I learned all I could about them, and how to stay safe if one hit. I had a plan for it - we would open all upstairs windows, and then we would run downstairs and get under our enormous, hard, heavy-as-a-ton desk in the play room. That way, if the ceiling caved in, we wouldn't be crushed. I thought. :) When we finished our basement, I insisted upon getting the most westerly bedroom, because "tornadoes come from the east."



I still am totally fascinated by them and scared of them. Whenever there is a documentary on about tornadoes, or those shows, Storm Chasers and Storm Stories, I squeal in glee and glue myself to the couch, transfixed by these beautiful monsters. Obviously, Twister was a huge favorite of mine. I saw it in the theaters like a billion times. And I still - STILL!! - have dreams about tornadoes almost every single night. And in every dream, no matter where I am, I am guiding everyone downstairs and under a heavy desk. And there are always several heading toward the building I am at in my dreams. Never just one. Always several.



So there you have it. My biggest fear/fascination.