This tornado loves you.

Punk.

Chump.

Interesting. Not every day a tornado comes 6 blocks from your house.

I didn't quite realize how close it'd come until I was driving home, heard Mary Lucia was talking about it, and heard her say that 42nd and Portland was a badly hit spot. What's funny is that I specifically went home on Cedar so I could see what I could see. I ambled over to Chicago on 44th, eager to witness something interesting, and there wasn't a leaf out of place. I headed north, still nothing. Finally at 38th St. there was a cop directing traffic. "Finally!" I exhaled. "Some carnage."

That was a bit of a letdown too, though. I looked west on 38th, and it certainly looked like complete bedlam from a traffic perspective, and I saw lots of fire trucks and a couple trees knocked down, but nothing Michael Bay would get out of bed for. The rest of the drive, not a creature was stirring. So then I look at the photos on the Star Tribune website to find that most of the worst damage took place at 36th and 5th Ave/Portland. How crazy is that? It's crazy. Our address is 3616 11th Ave, in case that helps deepen the utter craziness of it all.

Despite the proximity of this crazy bit of nature, our neighbor's staghorn sumacs, which bend to the ground when I so much as walk past them, did not even bat a staghorny eyelash.

Even crazier still (I know! If the craziness of this is too much, just close your browser now, take a deep breath, and watch some CSI Miami reruns) is that Jen was indeed at home with the kids. Luckily, the government's tornado sirens worked as promised, belting out 100+ decibels of pure warning over the wet rooftops. These life-saving klaxons went lost on Jen, who, due to an unfortunate trick of timing, figured they were just the test sirens since it was around 1 pm on a Wednesday. So, the family went about its merry day while a twister tore through the city less than 2000 yards away. On the plus side: their nap went uninterrupted.

Maybe they could set them up to play "La Cucaracha" just on Wednesdays, to clear up the confusion.

In Jen's defense, word has it that my brother made the very same assumption today.

On a slightly different note: in the past month, we've had roughly 4 thunderstorms that bore some teeth-rattling thunderousness. Of these, 4 happened after the girls' bedtime. Of these, 0 managed to wake them up. I have no idea how they do it, but they've slept like trolls through every storm. And since we haven't had a good daytime thunderstorm yet, the girls still have not seen lightning nor heard thunder. You know what that is?? You know....it's crazy. Crazy!!

Day one hundred and eighty five.

ps. these are all old pictures, sorry if they're repeats.

Family.

A little heart to heart.