TheBanyanTree: Gone with the Wind

[Margaret R. Kramer]

A line of fast moving storms came through St. Paul late yesterday morning.
We knew they were coming because we had our radio tuned to an AM station and
we could hear the lightening crackle and it was drowning out the announcer.
It became dark as night as quick as we could blink our eyes.  The wind came
first, bending over the trees, rattling our large For Sale sign in the front
yard, and cleaning out the small dead branches from our trees.

After the wind announced the storm’s arrival, torrents of rain fell,
over-running the sewers in front of our house and swamping the back yard.  A
huge branch of our neighbor’s willow tree snapped and is dangling
precariously from the old tree.

The storm zipped away, but the clouds hung around all day and kept our
temperatures down.  It would have been unbearable if the sun would have been
out.  We had tremendously high dew points for Minnesota.  One of our
northwestern towns had a dew point of 82.  Humid to us is when our dew
points are in the upper 60s and lower 70s.

For some reason the storm zapped my energy and after it passed, I had no
desire to do anything productive.  So I locked myself in our bedroom and
finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.  I wish I could look over J
K’s shoulder as she writes the last book to find out how she’s going to end
this wonderful story.

I emerged from Hogwarts and decided to watch a movie.  Ray knows that I’m
totally out of it when TV becomes my source of entertainment.  I bought Gone
with the Wind a few months ago, so I decided to watch that movie.  I got my
low salt, low fat popcorn, slipped the disk into the DVD player and
transported myself back to 1939 as well as the Civil War period.

I took a news break and a dinner break from the movie.  Then I went to
Target and the grocery store.  It was incredibly humid.  Some of neighbors’
windows were steaming up from the inside.  The Twins had won the second game
of their double header by the time I got home, so Ray joined me as we
continued the saga of Scarlet and Rhett and stopped the movie just before
Frank Kennedy was killed.

Today I absolutely have to “get with it.”  I didn’t go for a run yesterday,
so I have to make an effort to get to the club and work out.  I need to pay
our bills.  I want to sneak in a tanning session so I can keep my skin a
nice golden brown.  We’re watching the boys later this afternoon and I think
we’ll let them play here and after supper we’ll go to the Science Museum and
see the Imax movie Bears.  I know the older one wants to see the new exhibit
Animal Grossology, but we’re not going to have time for that, so I’ll have
to prepare myself to listen to him whine about it.  He loves getting his
way!

Then before I know it, I’ll have to get ready for bed and prepare for
another manic Monday.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not
with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a
show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw
Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness.  You
may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. .  ~Erma Bombeck