Surrender, Dorothy

Last night, my husband, my cat (Sybil) and my seven-week-old daughter sought refuge from "tornadic" storms (I have never heard this word until last night - is "tornadic" a word? Or did my local newscasters make this up?) in our Silence-of-the-Lambs basement. When I was growing up, we had a finished basement. Though cricket-filled, it was at least nice and carpeted with painted walls and no fears of bodies buried under the cracked concrete. This was an entirely new experience, though now at least they make battery-powered televisions so you can watch the over-excited meteorologists instead of listening to news radio.

Apparently, between the Kansas and Missouri sides of Kansas City (where we live), over 90 tornadoes were cited yesterday and 90 on Sunday. We of the Midwest take pride in our tornadoes, but this was ridiculous. And now that I have a babe, I had to pursuade my energetic husband to get off the front porch and down to the basement because what the hell am I going to do if he ends up with his little red shoes sticking out from under the neighbor's house?

Speaking of neighbors, ours are pirates. On one side we have a little blue-haired skate punk with a half-pipe in the backyard and a two-years-younger sidekick. Both of them are apparently allowed to pull Ollies until midnight on a school night, because I now collapse into my bed at 9 p.m. after a day of baby-caring to hear the clunk-clunk of missed jumps and flung curse-words from the mouths of preteens. On the other side, we have a large, bald man who keeps 50 tires in his backyard at all times and a washing machine in the front. The Environmental Protection Agency told him to get rid of the tires, so he conveniently now stores them on his truck, the mobile bastion of blight. Still, what can you do when you have bills to pay and don't want to live five light-years from all the fun stuff downtown?