Saturday, June 20,2009

Today is clean-up day in the neighborhood. Actually, I live in a pretty prestine area with lovely parks to walk in, tree lined streets with well kept 1960's houses and manicured lawns. So I bet you're wondering why clean-up day?

Last night we were hit with a wet microburst. For those who don't know, a microburst is similar to a tornado without the convergent winds. In other words, a very strong down draft that hits the surface and spreads out in straight lines. A wet microburst is accompanied by heavy rains.

At about 5:30 p.m. the clouds got extremely dark. It looked like the sun had set, but obviously was too early in the day. Next thing I knew it was pouring down in buckets. The last time I saw rain like this was in Florida where it rains so hard you can't see out the windshield. There was generalized lightening everywhere but no bolts or chains.

Out of the south/southwest the winds instantly picked up to between 75 and 80 mph. The large maple trees were blowing and bending like crazy. Suddenly many of the branches on the south side of the maple tree directly in front of my apartment snapped off and went airborne.

I stood on the balcony, not thinking I would get injured, until I saw a huge flash of light not more than 500 yards up the street. The transformer on the corner of Fairview and 59th Sts. blew sending us into darkness. For over 8 hours yesterday we were without power. Not fun on a Friday night or any night for that matter.

At 3:00 a.m., after having fallen asleep at 9:00 p.m. I was very uncermoniously awakened by the power coming back on. Suddenly the lights popped on and so did the fire alarm. Let me tell you....it works!!! It was the most deafening and obnoxious sound I have ever heard. Worse than some of the contestants on American Idol, and I thought. For another 30 minutes this ungodly sound went off. Instead of leaving the building, I just packed up my smokes and relocated myself to the balcony. The sound wasn't muffled at all, but hey, it was cool and I needed to smoke.

My room mate and I couldn't get back to sleep immediately. In fact, neither did most of the building. So we sat up chatting and loading our cell phones into our lap tops. I will admit that by 7 a.m. I was ready for a nap.

So today is cleanup day.. Sweep the dirt and debrees from the balcony. Go to Homo Depot to buy some battery laterns, and then off to Borders. Itty Bitty Book Lights are fabulous when you can't do anything else but read in the dark. While I'm there it's always good to check out what's new in books. Ciao all....happy reading.