But No Flying Monkeys

Last night I had some time between the getting-home-from-work rituals and the go-get-The-Child-from-her-very-late-rehearsal-because-the-show-opens-this-week drive time. So I was sitting at my computer catching up on sadly long neglected blogs reading blogs and I had this moment where I couldn't distinguish the noise in the background. There were a number of sounds going on at the same time:

• the thrum of the dishwasher (which is very low and thrummy since it's new)
• the stove fan (because The Spouse made himself an enchilada because I wasn't remotely hungry)
• the clippy-scritch of The Dog's nails (which are too long) across the marmoleum
• the warm air coming through the vent next to my desk (which may have also been enhanced slightly by the fluttering of the bits of paper attached to the wall just above it)

But somehow none of them were that distinctive until I stopped to pay attention. All mumbled together what it sounded like was a big wind storm outside. But it wasn't windy at all.

And that, (the supposedly windy part) reminded me of the time when I was a kid and we had a big wind storm. Actually, I have a lot of wind storm stories but in this particular case, it was bad enough that Dame Judi had summoned us all down from our upstairs bedrooms, least a tree go a'crashing in the night. The power had long since blown out, of course. And also, of course, Sean Connery was gone (probably an away basketball game...as this would have been during his teaching/coaching years).

We had a very large hutch in the living room (the Heyerly Hutch, which has a story all its own), which at the time was being used to hide the large piece of plywood that covered the spot where a door once had been and where no one had gotten around to fixing the wall. Dame Judi was standing/sitting near this as the winds blew and all a sudden the hutch started to tip as the wind hit the plywood, which blew in toward the house. Dame Judi leapt to the hutch and pushed against it, saving it from falling. Except the wind was still blowing so strong that she had to lean against the hutch for the rest of the storm to prevent a) the hutch from falling which would then be followed by 2) the plywood blowing into the room and smacking something resulting in C) the gapping hole in the living room wall that would then expose us to all the very harsh elements.

It seemed like the longest night possible, watching Dame Judi struggle to keep us safe even as we were worthless to help. (No one strong enough to spell her, no one big enough to be handy enough with tools and alternate pieces of wood to go outside and address the problem from that side). Eventually, Sean Connery came home and was able to do whatever he did to solve the problem (probably to do with power tools and more plywood) and then we either went to sleep in our sleeping bags, safe on the living room floor, away from the ravaging winds and theoretical falling trees or else the storm stopped and we went back to our beds. I don't remember that part.

I just remember one tired, frightened, frustrated mom pushing back on a hutch to hold back the winds and protect her babies. And it's something I think about every time the wind blows hard. And sometimes even when it doesn't.