More Dramatic Weather

We looked at each other as the earsplitting alarm sounded first on my phone, and then before I could silence the blare, on Heidi's, too. It was a tornado warning, not even a watch, and it directed us to find shelter in a low, interior room immediately. 

Unbelievably, in the nearly 25 years we have lived in our house, a tornado? Has never been a threat. "Where would that even be?" Heidi asked, reading the all-caps alert. 

"Uhh," I thought about it. "I guess the bathroom?" I rose from my seat and opened the door to the powder room. Although it did have an exterior wall, it was windowless, and maybe on ground level? It was hard to know how far the unit below us extended. It would be a tight squeeze for us, two cats, and the dog, though. 

Outside, the sky was dark as dusk, and a heavy rain began to fall. "Let me check a few things," I said to Heidi and found a real-time tornado tracker. There I saw that the rotation had not touched down and also we were not in its direct line, but rather on the outside corner of the possible range. "I think we can stay out of the bathroom for now," I reported, but chanted a quick protection mantra and kept my eyes on the screen.

A little while later, the alert expired. And a little while after that?

A Little Decorum

We were out for a midday walk when Lucy started doing her hysterical whining thing when she spotted a neighbor headed for the pool. 

"I'll come say hello so you don't pull anyone's arm off," the neighbor offered, and after a brief sit, I allowed Lucy over to see her. She didn't jump, but she did lean in and wag her tail very enthusiastically.

"I know!" said the neighbor. "I'm excited to see you, too! Isn't that funny? We feel the same way!"

"Yes," I agreed, drily. "You two are equally excited to see each other. Fortunately, you are able to control yourself a bit better than Lucy can."

W the Absolute F

Years ago I subscribed to news and traffic alerts issued by the county where I live, so a few times a day my watch or phone will ping to let me know that this or that local road is closed or reopened or that there is a severe weather warning or watch. 

Despite how small our county is geographically (the smallest in the country, thank you very much), I can honestly say that these notifications are almost never relevant to me; I am either already aware of the news they are reporting or unlikely to go by the impacted location. And when I'm on vacation the alerts can really be a nuisance: I've been awakened at 6 am in Key West because of a car fire 1,200 miles away and charged international messaging rates in Canada because of a fender bender back at home. 

Maybe it's like those people we knew when we were kids that had a police scanner squawking in their kitchens, because it has never occurred to me to unsubscribe; knowing (and ignoring) what is happening out on the streets has become part of the fabric of my daily life. 

And then, there is the story that unfolded today, when the driver of a tractor-trailer lost control and rammed several vehicles on the highway approaching one of the bridges to DC. Once his truck came to rest, he made a run for it, hopping the guard rail and bolting into the commercial district at the bottom of the embankment. Then he carjacked another vehicle before abandoning it to steal an ambulance and lead the police on a classic car chase full of crashes and collisions before finally being taken into custody and then transported to the hospital, along with several others injured in his wake.

Clearly, somebody's seen too many movies-- because? 

That is not how the Arlington Alerts roll.

Disconnected

I didn't even notice I was light in the pockets until half an hour or so after I got home. Then, wondering where I had set my phone, I tried to buzz it with my watch, and that's when I discovered that I did not have my phone.

Oh, I knew where it was. 

I had spent a lovely evening at Bill and Emily's for a family birthday dinner, and I had deliberately set my phone aside so that I could focus on the people rather than the device. In general, I don't think I'm too bad when it comes to staring at a screen instead of the face in front of me, but I know the allure of easy answers and photo illustrations can arise in almost every conversation, and so I put my phone down.

And I was very good! I participated in conversations and never looked at my phone once-- even when it was time to go home.

What is in Word?

To me, the word "binge" is negative; it implies unhealthy consumption and a lack of self-control. So when folks started talking about "binge-watching" TV shows, all I could picture was pale people with sunken eyes sprawled in the glow of a screen in a darkened room surrounded by empty soda cans, chip bags, and pizza boxes.

Turns out, binge-watching can also mean dedicating your viewing to a single show, which, after the stay-at-home months of 2020, makes quite a bit of sense to me. Then, we watched shows we had never seen for a couple of hours each night, from the first episode to the last. Since not much new content was being released, each show was our entire viewing experience for the weeks, or months, it took to watch it in its entirety.

I still remember those days in terms of what we watched. Spring and summer of 2020 was Once Upon a Time, late summer was Heart of Dixie, fall and early winter was Revenge, followed by The Resident because, well, Emily Van Camp. And our viewing habits have evolved to pretty much be one show at a time, with the exception of a few network shows, mostly reality format, or new episodes of shows we have binged and caught up with, and the occasional movie.

There is an instant gratification, to be sure, in being able to punch a single button on the remote and find out what happens next. Gone are the days of waiting a week, or even the whole summer to find out who shot JR or what would happen with Ross and Rachel. But gone, too, is the shared experience of waiting and then watching together with family and friends, and knowing that a lot of other people, across the country or even the world, were watching, too.

Self-Advocacy

I get it. Small businesses depend on getting butts in seats and keeping them there. Which is why I was willing to wait 40 minutes without complaint at our local nail salon. It didn't seem that busy when we entered, and they brought us to our chairs as soon as we chose our polish. 

But. 

We waited without explanation for over 30 minutes as all the technicians worked on other customers. And it was without a word that one of them twisted the water on in our basins and gestured for us to put our feet in. There was nothing added, and she turned the water off on her way back to the manicure she was working on. 

"Should we just leave?" Heidi finally asked a few minutes later. 

I sighed. I knew Heidi wanted her toenails done before she left for the beach, and it was hard to let go of the time we had already waited without getting service. "Let's give them 5 more minutes," I suggested. 

Within two, a technician came and began working on Heidi's toenails, and I felt optimistic. A few seconds later, they brought another customer back and sat her next to me. She couldn't have been there more than 5 minutes before she loudly asked, "Who am I waiting for? They said they would take me right away up front."

All the employees stopped what they were doing and stared at her in alarm. "Soon, soon," one of them assured her, but that was it for me. I pulled my feet from the tepid water and slipped them back into my flip-flops. Heidi's toenails would be done, and mine could wait.

"I'm going grocery shopping," I told Heidi. "Text me when you're done."

As I stood up, several of the workers shook their heads. "No, no!" they told me.

"I'm finished!" one of the technicians promised. 

It was the first time anyone had spoken to me in 45 minutes. "Nope," I told them. "I've been waiting too long! Maybe next time," I shrugged and I strode out of the salon, feeling liberated.

Oh, they tried to explain to Heidi that they had been unexpectedly busy, but the truth was this was the second time that this had happened. Back in June when my sister was in town, the three of us had gone for pedicures and had ended up waiting a long time. Then, I had been willing to believe it was a one-off and give the place another chance.

"Do you think you'll ever go there again?" Heidi asked later.

"I might go while you're at the beach," I said. "I kind of want to see if walking out made any difference."

Pro Tip

"You just have to show up at the court and play with whoever's there," Heidi's personal trainer advised her when she asked him about improving her pickleball game. 

So imagine our surprise on this glorious day when all our neighborhood courts were taken and we drove up the hill to the county rec center-- the first person we saw was Patrick, Heidi's trainer. There were plenty of open courts though, and so we played singles for a while, Patrick cheering on whoever was on the side closest to his own game.

A little after noon, though, the place almost emptied out, and we were just hitting lobs to each other, practicing shot placement and backhands when a dad and his two teenage daughters began playing a court away from us. The girls were good, and I wondered if they might become the Venus and Serena of pickleball when their dad asked us if we wanted to play doubles with his daughters. 

Kyra and Naomi handed us our asses for two games straight before their dad suggested we mix up the teams. It was closer then, but the girls carried their teams to victory. Even so, I felt like I was able to take my game up a bit.

"That was fun!" I told them as we knocked paddles at the end of the last game. "Thanks for playing us!"

Too bad Patrick wasn't there to see it!