Hell Knows No Fury Like Mother Nature on a Purge

Normally I love thunderstorms. Few things are as exciting and kinetic—and ironically, nothing makes me sleep better. Except when they’re punctuated with tornado sirens.

Last night I was looking forward to Mother Nature’s forecasted pyrotechnic show. Then the tornado sirens started, and I started watching TV and listening to the radio for reports. They kept giving expected—and extended—times that a tornado might hit my area, but they never mentioned any actual sightings.

Should I go down to the basement? My dogs, Bill and Charlie, are geriatric and don’t do stairs. They also collectively weigh in at over 110 pounds. The thought of carrying each down steep wooden steps and eventually carrying them back up was formidable. I got a tiny sense of what folks in New Orleans were experiencing last year as they assessed safety issues versus their pets’ well-being.

I felt exhausted and finally decided to play the odds, stay above ground, and go to bed as my dead-tired body was begging. I kept the radio on so I could perhaps get the heads-up if a tornado actually came into existence in my universe.

I don’t know if it was another tornado siren or the dogs’ restlessness that woke me at 1:30. It was showtime. No twister, but plenty of action. I raised the blinds so I could better absorb the phantasmagoria. White-hot canopies of lightning illuminated the night to show walls of rain descending. The sound effects were those of a howitzer as fists of hail landed continuous sucker-punches to the roof, accompanied by deep-in-the-belly bursts of thunder, followed by the sounds of the sky being ripped and cracked apart. Every flash brought a new scene, and it was mesmerizing and never-ending.

Finally it was 2:00 a.m., and although the show wasn’t over, I needed some sleep. The dogs settled, and I drifted off, filled with the experience and contemplative in its aftermath. How gracious is Nature, our Mother and favorite Drama Queen, to so beautifully and theatrically give us a great show with the resulting bonus of a clean slate and fresh air to breathe again.

The Magic of Paul Cebar

It had been a hard week. Meeting friends at the Terrace to sit by the lake, drink beer, and listen to Paul Cebar and the Milwaukeeans seemed the perfect respite from—if not the cure for—what ailed me. And with four guys at the table, I was confident in my dance opportunities.

I fell in love with Paul Cebar’s enchanting cantos before I ever moved to Wisconsin, and his are among my favorite tunes to crank up on my iPod when I run. I hadn’t heard him in person for at least two years, so I crossed my fingers that the impending rain would hold off and the night would brighten in all possible ways.

The rain was held at bay, and the music started; but my hopes for dance partners were quickly dashed. The gay couple? Okay, they get a pass. But Rick & Craig were total poopy-butts. Not to be deterred, I joined the masses in the dance area, and lost myself moving to the rhythm and music. Then the little miracle of synchronicity occurred—there on the edge of the crowd was Michael, the man in whose Audi TT I first listened to the strains of a Paul Cebar CD in Austin, Texas almost five years ago.

Just the fact that he would spend huge bucks on a vehicle that is essentially a skateboard with a roof, says something about Michael. (To his credit, he did eventually trade it in for a Jeep.) Our… er… togetherness—you couldn’t really call it a relationship with a straight face—was something less than emotionally satisfying. But damn, we had some great adventures! We traveled well together—at least until we broke up in Cleveland—and we always shared a passion for music and dance. Even when we parted, it was with great warmth and respect. It was Michael’s sister who took me into her heart and home for my first experience of Madison that ultimately led to my move here.

As Michael and I swirled and twirled and stomped and glided, time and place disappeared and melded into the spell of sound and movement. We both commented that it took us back to the time we danced to this same music when Cebar & the Milwaukeeans appeared at a street festival in Winston-Salem. And when the sweat started pouring down, we were once again gyrating to the steamy sounds of JazzFest in New Orleans.

During breaks in the music we caught up on news. Michael moved in with his girlfriend and they’re hoping they can soon open a bar in Austin. His father died this summer. I gave updates on my family. Then the music resumed and we were dancing again.

Midnight is the same for Cinderellas everywhere. The music stops, and the magic recedes into the night. But as hugs were exchanged and good-byes said, the warmth and light of auld acquaintance and good memories brightened the darkness.

Jack and the Squash Plant

I keep expecting a thunderous chorus of “Fee-fi-fo-fum” to come echoing out of my backyard, at which point I’ll have some ‘splaining to do.

"Really sir, it was an accident. When people asked if I was going to plant a vegetable garden, I was adamant with my 'No way!' How could they even ask? I’m doing this Gardening by Accident program, which is about making beautiful flower gardens; but it doesn’t seem to work out that way. For instance, in April I thought that while I had the rototiller rented, I might as well plow up every area that seemed like a good place for a flower bed now or in the next 15 years. I had no idea what to do next, and got too busy to do anything. But the weeds had plenty of both time and experience and knew exactly what to do. Not pretty.

"Based on these facts, sir, do you honestly think I had anything to do with that squash plant?"

Last year when I bought this house, it came with a wire enclosure in one corner of the back yard. I recognized it as a compost bin. Hey, that seems cool. I can make things rot as well as anyone. So I started donating grass clippings, vegetable peelings, and any other non-meat organic matter I could lift in the name of compost. I had subscribed to a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) group, from which I got a box of organic vegetables every other week. I seldom consumed it all, so that was a slightly expensive method I found for expanding my compost heap and giving it some cross-training materials.

Shortly before my maiden rototiller experience, I shoveled all the compost out of the bin into a little hill to one side. I planned to till it into the flower-beds-to-be, but plowing up the North 40 sapped me of the will to till further. Last year’s compost stayed where it was. Then it started sprouting some big elephant ear-like leaves that even I could see resembled something like a squash plant. Soon the compost hill was nicely camouflaged with this greenery. Considering that I haven’t been able to grow much of anything on purpose, I was quite pleased with this non-weed vegetation and its ability to cover up less attractive areas that included compost hills and weeds.

Now the Squash Plant has taken on a life of its own and achieved the size of a Ford Taurus. So far it seems benign, but I don’t fully trust anything that grows faster than kudzu; and I keep a close eye on the dogs when they go out to make sure they don’t disappear in some horrible cucurbita maxima incident that should only occur in a Stephen King novel.

This Findhornish creation has started climbing over the fence and producing real, live, honest-to-god squash. I looked them up on the ‘Net, and they’re called “Sweet Dumpling”. Who could resist a name that sounds like some adored child? The one squash I proudly harvested so far is about the shape and size of a toddler’s head (although I suppose a mother would worry if her child had those equi-distant ridges spanning his gourd), and is a creamy color with green stripes. I can’t quite bear to cook it, so it’s reposing atop my microwave. I’m not quite as proud of this squash-child as I am of Carrie—but in both cases I do find it almost miraculous that I produced them.

As the mothership of flora that might soon require “USS” in front of its name continues its explosive growth, my awe expands with its size. Will it extend to the prairies and reach for the sky? What other magical feats might it perform? What fairytale creatures could it attract?

"Really, sir. It was entirely accidental."