Let the dog in!

I just spent a week in St. Louis and Dallas. Let’s discuss weather for a moment. Hot. Humid. St. Louis, especially humid, but sunny. Dallas, breezy, then cloudy, then rainy, then lightening storm, then tornado. YES! We had three days in Dallas and not only got treated to a brief review of the Texas gullywasher, but also to a tornado watch! Winds: up to 55mph. This part was most amusing as my mother lives on the 4th floor of a 21-story building. Picture large windows and sliding glass doors rattling and whistling as Kid and I splash in the indoor pool. Kid: giggling, oblivious. Me: jumpy, with visions of glass spears flying across our wet, half-naked bodies. Triage! Triage!

While tornadoes were averted, Kid had her own trauma that stormy night. After we came out of a restaurant from dinner (Dallas’ restaurant population has exploded in the past ten years, and not just BBQ anymore either), the gullywasher began. Kid and I dashed across a crowded parking lot (does no one eat at home anymore? lucky them, I say) and jumped into the car. Whereupon Kid, who would play in a shoe box with an inch of water just for fun, twice a day, freaked out, crying and yelling that her clothes were wet and MUST all come off NOW! Meanwhile, my back got soaking wet while this performance continued because I was bending over outside the back door, waiting for her to sit in her car seat so I can buckle her in. I then began yelling that MY clothes are now sopping wet, too, sit down, sit down, it’s only water, sit down right now, it’s only water, keep your dress on and SIT DOWN….. which to her ears I can only presume sounded like shrieks of “blahblahblah, young lady, blahblahblah, NOW, young lady!”

Finally, with Kid stripped to her panties, we drove off in the dark with my wet hands clutching the steering wheel of a borrowed, new car. Roads flooding here and there, visibility less than perfect. Then, about halfway home, Kid announced that one of her new sparkly, purple flip flops is back at the parking lot. Excuse me?? I had to choose: do I proceed on and just get home or aim for the Mommy of the Day Award? Fearing for my ear drums if I didn’t, I turned around. Kid gave a relatively accurate description of how when she walked in the ten foot puddle, her flip flop came off (or, as I imagine, she shook it off because it too was WET). I turned back into the parking lot, and lucky for both of us, in the giant puddle something purple glimmered. I once again dashed out into the downpour, waded through the pond and grabbed that @#%!! shoe. Did I mention I hate flip flops? Always have. Never liked them. Back at home, Kid refused to put her clothes, or even the precious shoes, back on, so I carried her from the car, wrapped in a raincoat. Now, where do I collect my award?

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