I'm Not Afraid of the Wind...But I Don't Like Flying Monkeys

I’ve talked before in previous blogs (where I neglected to regularly put on my Clarkett Kent blogospehere glasses) about duality of my youth. I think lots of kids who grew up with a dad who was in the military and then worked on the Trans Alaska Pipeline had that. And yeah… there are way more kids like that than you think. When you’re the kid of a tattooed maintenance man who makes 6 figures, that’s just the beginning of an interesting childhood. When I feel nostalgic, there are very few stories of the time Pinky got caught on the top of the slide and they had to call the fire department for me. I’ve got, however, no less than three stories of the time that guy got jerked out of his car through the window stories.

Yesterday, the weather took me on a trip in the way back machine to a time when I lived in a place where the earth was constantly trying to kick your ass. Things tend to be intense in Alaska. Everything is just harder there than it is in the lower 48. Shoveling a foot of snow off from your car with a 6 inch scraper and your coat sleeve after a movie, walking on ice that Chinook winds have left smooth and with a half inch of water on top, bears that also utilize the local bike path, and frozen nose hairs at the bus stop. Maybe, that was the worst. Ok. It is all beautiful and majestic and stuff…but whatever… so is where I live now, so is North Carolina, so is Seattle. Most places are beautiful if you slow down enough to look. For my money, the beauty of where I live now, coupled with real cities that aren’t a 3 hour plane ride away, and more than one road in and out of town is totally better than what I had in Alaska. And plus… my hometown isn’t regularly trying to whoop my ass.

Well. Yesterday, it gave it the good old college try. There were gusts up to 75 mile an hour winds. That’s a breezy Tuesday in the 907. However, apparently, down here this is a pretty big deal. The trees are bigger here than in Alaska and they’re built closer to homes etc. The buildings are solid, but not meant to withstand 8 feet of snow, earthquakes and 100 mile an hour mountain winds. On my Sunday afternoon out, TB insisted that we go home NOW when the power went out at TJ MAXX. I got a lecture on how it was a horrible day out. He began ranting about the danger of house parts and trees flying around like a game of Mario Cart on the way home. And I suppose he was right to some extent, because apparently, in the heartland, 75 mile an hour winds are enough to peel the very roof off the 84 Lumber. That was an interesting bit of scenery on the way home ….

*giggle*

I like to think that I am a product of my hometown. Not Alaska, despite 19 years there. The way I talk, the work I do, the way I relate to people and the people I relate to have always been a direct result of the other half of my upbringing. I like to think that my time in Alaska really only gave me the need to sleep outside occasionally and the need to strap a board to my feet and slide down a mountain every now and again. But clearly, it gave me a total indifference to dangerous weather. Even watching the roof roll up and blow off the 84 Lumber and blow away didn’t freak me out. I am not impressed with a roof unless it blows off a house. And even then, you don’t have to worry until it slams into your 2nd floor windows.

Until yesterday, I’d damn near lost that childhood memory beneath all the car window ass beating memories. I was 3. Maybe 4. And the Chinook winds had blown through Anchorage making the whole town feel like the beginning of The Wizard of Oz. My poor mom, who’d been jerked out of a big city into what was in the late 70’s still very much the wilds of Alaska was freaking the hell out. We had the standard issue Alaska home. Chalet style (all that snow needs a steep roof to slide off from…), deck across the front, and a basement that wasn’t totally a basement, there were maybe four feet above ground and windows across that area. We had a neighbor who had a 90 some percent wolf hybrid dog with gold eyes who used to come and peer at us down there. They were good sized windows, maybe 3 feet tall.

My dad had just started working for the pipeline service company. This means that while he was working in the state, he was some where near a thousand miles away from home. My mom was convinced the roof was going to blow off. She told him that when he called to check in for the evening (something he did every single night, no matter how tight money was for nearly 25 years). He chuckled, thinking that my very imaginative and still adjusting to Alaska city girl mom was totally over reacting. She was mad at his being so tickled by the fact that the roof might very well blow off (wonder where I get it?). So we did what you always did in Alaska… we went to bed and waited for the weather to get normal.

At some point in the middle of the night there was a horrendous crash. It was the kind of crash that made you wish it was just an intruder. It sounded like our house had been hit by a freight train. Clearly, that was impossible. So naturally, when we got up to see what the commotion must have been, we realized it wasn’t a train, but instead the roof from the house across the street. And it was in our basement. Over the 25 years that my dad worked on the ‘pipeline, my mom called him at work 3 times. Twice she called for deaths in the family. The other time was this night. I don’t remember much else but nailing rugs over the broken glass and my mom being very animated saying, “I TOLD you!!!!”

I don’t remember how we got the roof out of the basement, but we did. I also remember having to have our roof fixed. It didn’t blow into anyone’s basement, but it did lift over and inch and a half off the rest of the house.

Today, it is Monday. It is 9:37. I am in bed with my laptop and my 2nd cup of coffee. TB is still asleep. It was a snow day. Or a wind day, I guess. All the schools in the area are closed due to debris and I’m not really sure what. There comes a point, folks, where you don’t much care why you get a surprise day off. I’ll relax a little, and go start some clean up. My gardens are totally decimated. Cosmos and Cleome lying flat, I hate to see what has happened to my peppers and tomatoes. My compost bin is in the middle of my yard and WD is still hesitant to go out. But my neighbor’s roof seems to still be on her house where it belongs and I’m glad about that. And while I don’t really understand why I have a day off (school got canceled in Anchorage once for 2 days after a volcano blew and dumped several feet of ash on the ground, but that’s about it) I am not complaining any either. Being a candy ass…is kind of nice.