One more thing...

Today I was blissfully asleep...I stayed up late finish a book...when I was awakened by the...wait for it....TORNADO WARNING SIREN!
Yes, indeed. I shot out of bed and pulled on some clothes, thinking all the while, "gotta get the dog, gotta get a jug of water and get to the basement!"
Just to interject here, it is amazing what your mind thinks of when you are in panic mode...I kept thinking how mad the kids would be if I didn't get the dog...for heaven's sake...the DOG was the first thing I thought of. I would like to think the kids would have been my first concern, but they weren't home...
Back to the story.
Anyway, I run downstairs, grab the dog and my cell phone, then I notice...no wind, no rain...
to interject again...I have seen the movie Twister, I know that there is wind and rain with tornados...
Suddenly, my brain kicks into gear and I realize that the siren has gone off, but apparently for no reason....I got the newspaper to see if there was some sort of drill, then I notice the lady in my backyard...
To interject once again, when people in Montana walk through your back yard, we usually get the shotgun out...Apparently in Illinois, this is normal...
She waves at me...
yes, I am in my pj's with my hair uncombed...
And keeps walking.
I check out all the windows and nope, no tornado. By this time, the dog thinks I am insane...and that brings me to another story....

I came home from the store to discover that my garage side entry door was wide open, in fact, so was my side door into the house.
point of fact...we live in a very large house. If you count the attic and full basement, it is four stories high!
Well, being the brave soul that I am, I grab a knife from my rack in the kitchen and my cell phone...
hey, I watch CSI! I know that if you are stuffed in a car trunk, you want your cell phone...
And begin to scour the house....first the upstairs...Each and every room has a closet, some of them have two...a shower (2 upstairs) and of course the attic, which I determine no one could be in because the door has stuff in front of it.
meanwhile, the dog is following me around..now you have to picture this...I am sneaking around my own empty house, with a butcher knife and a cell phone ... and a very curious dog.
I check every room upstairs, downstairs and then, I have to check....THE BASEMENT!
Point of fact....I have seen the Jason movies and several others...I know what happens in basements!
So, I turn on the light...creep down the stairs...
the dog is still following me...
and there is nothing there. Except puppets. For some of you, that might make you nervous...for me, it is just the way life is in my house.
I must say, if the dog could talk, she would have said "you are such a moron...." Instead, she sighed and went to sleep on the couch.

All this, and Brett has only been gone two days.
Who said life wasn't interesting in small towns??
By the way, it was a drill, the wind blew the garage door open...and my dog still thinks I am stupid.