we need a hero

Dodge and I were talking about superhero movies…

Dodge: “Spiderman is lame.”
Me: “Don’t insult Spiderman!”
Dodge: “Psh. Ohhhkay.”
Me: “Fine. Well, I like Captain America better anyway.”
Dodge: “Does he have a gun?”
Me: “He’s in the army, so yeah, obviously. And a shield. Which makes him better than Spiderman because Spiderman doesn’t have any cool weapons.”
Dodge: “He shoots a web, oooh! He flies between the buildings! What if he had to fight someone on a farm in the middle of nowhere?”
Me: “That’s why he doesn’t live in Kansas.”
Dodge: “Like, the superhero of Kansas would have to be a tractor or something. Tractor Man! Half man, half tractor! You know, he tried to make a supertractor and then there was a radiation leak–”

Hah. Speaking of sci-fi accidents, I demand to speak with whoever made the weather go crazy. Seriously, 80 degrees in March? The summer is going to be hot as H-E-double-hockey-sticks. And about as fun.

Oh wait. I’m going to the beach. With the DHFs.
Never mind!
This summer is going to rock! Yeah!

Plus, at least our new backyard will be shaded, and at least there are a million birds out there (seriously, Dodge and Dad saw a turkey back there yesterday. A TURKEY. Sitting there in a suburban backyard. Then it flapped off. I didn’t see it, and I still kind of don’t believe they actually saw it and are just trying to see how gullible I am). As a summer project I want to learn to identify which songs belong to which birds. I’d also like to actually go bird-watching, with binoculars and all. And go to the park on a regular basis, in order to keep some kind of hold on my fleeting sanity. Plus I really, really feel like reading a ton. All the Lord of the Rings books, of course! Finally. I think I might at last be able to manage it.

But I’m also enjoying spring… For what I think is the first time, it doesn’t feel like a wimpy season. I suddenly feel like running a lot and planting a million flowers and blooming trees. I went to the home improvement store the other day to get my compost bin, and I saw these purple and white columbine flowers… and then I pretended I didn’t desperately want to get them to plant in our yard. I can’t believe this! I’m turning into a flower sort of girl! How… How… something. At least it was columbine and not gerbera daisies or something, though. I haven’t completely changed!

Yet I am changing. I feel this is going to be a year of transformation.
As long as said transformation doesn’t include rabid tractors or radiation leaks… ;)

~Pen

(When the sirens wail, we need a hero here! And when the air conditioner drones on and on.)

 

as the city clears and sun ascends

Yesterday evening we had a huge storm. Dad, Dodge, and I were watching the weather people on TV get really worked up over it. “Funnel cloud spotted! Tornado warning!”

Poncho came running into the living room. “WROOOP! WROOOP! EVACUATION!”
Me: “What?”
Poncho: “Mom says evacuate to the basement! WROOOP!! WROOOP!!”
Dad: (in a squeaky voice) “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”
Me: “Uh, maybe we should, just in case.”
Dad: “Look, I see it on TV! It’s not coming.”

Except it sort of was moving northeast, toward us…
So, I grabbed my jump drive, my copy of Jane Eyre, and a few other miscellanious objects and set off for the basement. Dodge sent the dogs downstairs just in case, though he stayed upstairs with Dad. Poncho and I ran up and down the stairs intermittently, trying to find out if the storm was coming closer to us.
Me: “Hey Dad, if the storm is going to hit us, you’ll let me know, right?”
Dad: “Nah, I think I’ll just stay here and watch it.”
Dodge: “Wouldn’t it be great if it swept our house away?”
Me: “If we were in the basement, yeah… Dundundundanana! Dundundundanana! What a quick solution to our problems!”
Dad: “Hey, will you go upstairs and grab my phone off the bedside table?”
Me: “Um… I guess…”
Dodge: “Nice, Dad. Send her into danger.” (Although he did not volunteer to take my place… Chivalry is dead. )

The storm ended up just below us, and the radar showed the eye of the storm in purple hovering right atop Parma. The worst we got was some serious rain for maybe 15 minutes, and then everything was calm again. Well, everything except the newspeople. They were still wigging out on TV as the very colorful blob of the storm moved east, leaving our area drenched but safe.

I called the DHF shortly after, to make sure they were all right. Which they were, happily. :)

So that was the excitement… It feels like summer now! Hot, muggy, stormy. Yup.

Yours till the funnel clouds,
Pen

 

the weatherman is sure there will be more

It’s been snowing here for about three days straight, I think. It’s perfectly wonderful, of course, since we won’t be sick of it until a month or two from now. Actually I don’t get sick of the snow, or the cold even, but the salt grime. And most of all the not-being-able-to-wear-skirts-that-drag-the-ground.

I took a walk yesterday as it was snowing. Just a few blocks. It was really nice, and quiet, and I love the whole atmosphere of mystery during winter. The long nights, the grey, silent days… maybe that’s why my novel is set in a kind of perpetually-wintry city. Unlike rain, when snow falls it makes no sound. Somehow it’s just cool to stand anywhere you’re alone, maybe with some bare trees nearby, and just watch the snow fall. Silence. It’s beautiful and kind of creepy at the same time, like you’re in this magical world but you’re also the only person inhabiting it.

Yep, you heard right, I have now declared my love for the season of winter. “Oh that I were a glove upon that hand”…. etc, etc. More like, “oh that I had a glove upon my hand”, but whatever.

So. The snow. Winter. Life is good, as those incredibly irritating t-shirts (and now bumper stickers, apparently) say. Man, I hate those. It’s like, yeah, life is good, but it’s not all cartoon inner tubes and smiley stick people. Geez.

Uh, what was I going to say before I went off on a tangent? Oh yeah. Life. Pshh. Never mind, I don’t feel like being all talkative anymore. I kind of feel like just sitting here listening to music and pretending to be a teenager. Is it possible to feel too young to be a teenager and too old at the same time but still simultaneously feel like a teenager is exactly what you are? 
If it’s not… I have achieved the impossible.

 

Brrr!

It’s cold! Last I checked it was only 11 degrees. But there’s snow, so that makes it worth it a little. I like snow and winter and all, becuase it’s pretty and snowflakes are amazing. But summer has got to be my favorite season, and not just becuase there’s no school. It’s warm and you can be outside all day and te sun is shining and you wish it was cold but then you take it back…. ahh. And this summer is going to be especially fun becuase I’m going t have a garden with vegtables and maybe some flowers, I haven’t decided yet, and also a pumpkin patch. I took the seeds from my Halloween pumpkins and saved them the right way so I can plant them in the spring.

But on to a different subject. It just makes it even colder to think of summer! I just finished reading Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke. It was really good, and despite the fact that they came very close non of my favorite characters died. Yay! I loved the ending. But then I couldn’t read anything else for like two days. Whenever I finish a really good book and then try to start another, it just doesn’t pull me in like usual, so I end up rereading the end ofthe other book like five times. Oh well.