Fun and Games in Pork Smith

Excellent giant storm in the Pork last night -- right as House started, to the woe of the kid.

We had to pack up and go to the tornado shelter, about a mile away at the local elementary school. Tornado sirens wailing, trees whipping, rain pelting, everyone carrying children and dogs, it's always exciting. Outside the shelter, which is a fine structure, may I add, pebbled and pretty, with earthen bunkers built around, I guess to provide more shelter from flying debris, folk are standing around scanning the dim clouds (it's eight at night, dark even without the storm), watching for twisters. Inside, small children are running over the gym floor (the shelter doubles as a gym for the school) and parents and grandparents are sitting up against the walls, some in lawn chairs, most on the floor.

I spot a bare bit of wall and poach it eagerly. It's the last bare bit of wall.

The kid immediately informs me she is bored.

I hand her her Pippi book.

"I don't want to read. I want to find daddy."

mr. delagar is out roaming the fields around the school with his dvd camera -- what else? This is a man who won't drive if it is raining. But filming a tornado, well, that is something else entirely.

"Absolutely not," I say. "No way."

She sulks. She wanders away. She comes back. "I have to whiz."

"Well, go whiz. The pisser is over there."

"You come with me."

I look up at her. (I am trying to read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.) "Let me get this straight," I say. "You are willing to go out into the storm alone to look for your daddy. But you won't walk into a pisser by yourself which is two feet away from me."

She scowls.

"If I go with you," I point out, "I will lose my spot against this wall."

She pouts.

"Fucking crap," I say, and get up and go with her.

Later the all clear was announced. However, we were warned that it was still raining "quite heavily," and told we were welcome to stay. But mr. delagar wanted to get home to look at his footage, and the kid was bored, and the people I had ended up sitting among after the pisser incident were smokers -- not smoking in the shelter, you aren't allowed to smoke in the shelter, but they reeked of smoke, and were giving me a migraine just the same, so we went.

"Quite heavily" turned out to be an utter deluge -- water halfway to our knees as we crossed the parking lot, rain so heavy I couldn't keep my eyes open, bits of hail mixed in by the time we reached the car. The kid was gasping and wailing: "Mama! Mama! I'm scared."

"I've got you," I told her. "I'm here."

"This is too much rain!"

"Boy, is it," I agreed.