Settle in 'cause the road going west got drowned.

Angie sometimes talks about George Lucas and when she does, she says that he's like her abusive boyfriend. Even though the Star Wars prequels were absolutely terrible, she went to see them, knowing they would be terrible, waited in line and sat through them. She kept coming back for more.

I am starting to think this is like me with Oklahoma.


Giant-shit hail (there really aren't any other words to describe it) tore through Oklahoma City (and the back window of my car) on Sunday. I thought to myself, "Hey, no tornadoes with this storm. Just hail. Awesome!"


THINGS ARE NOT AWESOME WHEN THE HAIL IS THE SIZE OF TENNIS BALLS.

It came down for about 10 minutes; me and Chelsey just watched in awe. Gertie was barking the entire time because she thought someone was knocking on the door and she really wanted us to let them in. By the time it was done with, it looked like it had snowed in the back yard. It was still raining, but Chelsey ventures out to explore our cars. And comes back delivering bad news. Not only did it get my back window,

It got my side mirror:


The top of my car:


The hood of my car:


Chelsey's back window:


And her windshield:


Our brand new vehicles, only months old, are basically scrap metal at this point. Every piece of my car suffered damage, with the exception of the front and rear bumpers, because they're made of plastic. Of the about 30 cars in our parking lot, I'd say 25 of them lost windows. All of the north-facing windows on our building were broken. Luckily, our condo's surrounded with walls.


Also impressive was the amount of leaves the hail took of the trees. No, that's not grass. Those are leaves. That's the court yard right outside my front door. If you haven't seen this video of hail slaying an Oklahoma City pool, I'd suggest you observe.

As I type this, I'm sitting in Norman, under yet another tornado watch.

All I have to say about that:

AW HAIL NO!

Sometimes I'm pretty funny.

And when I say that Oklahoma is my abusive boyfriend I keep coming back to, what I really mean is that living in Oklahoma has proved to be the most challenging year of my life thus far. But I'm smart enough to understand that these tough things were either A) something I brought upon myself and B) horrible, horribly, ridiculously bad absences of luck. So it's not Oklahoma's fault. It's no one's, really.

Which is why I keep coming back for more. (Look at me, making excuses for my abuser!)

Want to hear something about me that has nothing to do with me moving to Oklahoma or the weather? Okay. Listen to Banner Pilot.

Oklahomans take their weather casters very seriously. So seriously in fact that there's an official tornado watch drinking game asociated with one of them, Gary England

That's all I got.

East Jesus Nowhere.

Guess what! More blogging about weather!

OKC got about 3 inches of rain in twenty minutes on Friday night. Streets were flooded, cars were stalled out, all out mayhem ensued. I still found the courage to brave Tropical Storm Benny (since it was the second of the season and I watched Benny and Joon today) and go to drag night at the Hi-Lo. Good decisions all around.


Rain dance.

Bigger pictures of the torrential down pour if you care.



This video is priceless for several reasons: 1) Chelsey's sound effects when she splashes the water. 2) It's a pretty accurate representation of what happens when I start freaking out over the weather; Cat: "There's a tornado!" Chelsey: "There's not a tornado."

I wish I could say I was doing more with my life than freaking out over weather. But here's the thing: my rent's paid up until July. Job searching is much harder when that's taken care of.

Do the right thing.

Look who survived her very first tornado warning.

Sirens went off at about 10:30, as Chelsey and me were watching Twilight (I know, I KNOW). I promptly freaked out, Chelsey laughed, and we turned on the weather, which told us the "tornado activity" was in the southern part of the city, almost 20 miles away. No matter, between the wind, the rain and the radar, that crap was scary.

Video of the craaaazy lightning:


It didn't effect Chelsey at all. I don't know, I guess it's a regional thing. I can eat anything spicy, but Chelsey's not scared of tornadoes. Yeah, same thing.

Still no hot water. brb, braving coldness in the name of clean hair.

Driftwood.

So, last night me and Chelsey went out for $7 All You Drink Killians at her favorite bar, the Hi-Lo. When we left, it became clear that the wind was getting pretty intense. We went to Whataburger and the lights started flickering, which made Drunkie Cat assume that there HAD to be a tornado somewhere close by. We get back to the condo and what do we behold, but:


God hates Fords.


Yeah, that's a transformer and a power pole through a Mustang.


Completely destroyed that car.

The good news is I live with Chelsey and she's super good at storms in Oklahoma:

Look at her already clearing the damage!

It reminds me a lot of this glorious photo, taken on the Gulf a year after Katrina:

LOLing in the face of destruction.

The bad news is the storms are only supposed to get worse. They're talking about flash floods, 80+ mile an hour winds, baseball size hail and dare I say tornadoes until the early hours of the morning. So, I'll probably be spending most of my night listening for sirens and hiding in my bathtub. I remember when Albuquerque had a tornado watch about a year ago and thinking it was super cute. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. But here, dudes, I've never seen clouds so low. I'm trying hard not to freak out, but it's scaaaaary.

More awesomeness: That power pole that killed the Mustang also killed most of the electrical in our complex. We didn't have power for 6 hours this morning and we won't have hot water until mid-day tomorrow. This is unfortunate because in my drunken excitement over taking pictures of the carnage last night, I slipped and fell on a puddle of some sort of goo (which I am now reading was probably coolant from the transformer). And when I mean fell, I mean I was leveled before I even knew what had happened. Pretty sore today. And sticky from transformer coolant and the Sprite I dropped when I feel. I could really use a shower. It would be pretty awesome if I got called back for a job interview tomorrow.

Also, little sister qualified for the FINAL of the 100m hurdles at the NM High School State Track and Field Championships. She raced in the prelims today and had the 5th fastest time in the state. She's only a freshman!