in and working

 I've tried, this fall, to keep my weekends for myself, as I need the time off. But yesterday afternoon I wound up NOT being able to come back and work.

Those of you who know where I live might guess why. It was supposed to storm; I had the unpleasant debate with myself of "do you risk your car sustaining massive hail damage parked up on campus OR do you go home, not get the work done you wanted to do, but be able to garage your car? vs. Do you go up to campus and work on the grounds that if there's a tornado, there's a sturdier shelter there (part of the building is underground).

I went home and ate lunch and half planned to grab my current sock project (in case I had to spend time in a bunker) and come back and then......they called a tornado warning.

Okay, fine. Not safe to drive back up. But my car was still out so I very quickly ran (I knew the worst of the storm was still well south) and garaged my car, thinking that at least if we got hail it would be safer.

Then I got my tornado kit together- sturdy shoes (for walking over debris), purse (important documents/cards), phone (which I plugged in so it would be maximally charged if the power went out), my blackthorn walking stick (in case I needed to walk over debris, it would help), some pillows and quilts (in case a tornado hit - get in the dry tub underneath them is the best protection I can get in my home from flying debris). Also took a couple of my most treasured stuffies in there (including Pfred, which could also help protect from flying debris, because he's almost four feet long)

And I sat in there with my laptop. Managed to rejoin Mastadon in case twitter either becomes utterly unusable or just goes away* I had the Weather Channel on so I could keep an ear out for what was happening (eventually when I came back out I switched to the local channel, realizing the local weatherman would be on instead of whatever afternoon chat show normally shows, and his information is better.

At any rate: While we were under a warning, the tornado that touched down was well south of me (an old golf-center, long closed down, its clubhouse was destroyed near Calera. There was a tornado in Idabel but that's nearly 2 hours away from here (East). 

Fortunately the storm wound down before suppertime, so I didn't have to sleep last night with one ear out for alerts. I don't seem to have lost any tree limbs, and there didn't seem to be any down between home and campus.

(*I know it's quite fashionable to hate on Twitter and social media in general, and position oneself as Above It, as it was once fashionable (and still is, in some circles) to be Above watching tv and for some, to even pity the small-brained losers who DO watch. But like oddball weirdos everywhere, I found a 'tribe' on Twitter unlike what I could find locally, and I admit the thought of losing it makes me very sad. Apparently a few mutuals have already left or greatly curtailed their activity; most of my twitter mutuals are not on Mastodon (or I haven't found them yet) so it's kind of empty over there for me. And yes, it does matter: I don't have a lot of local friends and if you're not a mom, or not a sportsperson, or not in some of the status-groups here, it's HARD to find friends. And there's no real "water cooler chatter" at my workplace, at least not any more, with everyone kind of pushed to the limit and a few people still doing much of their teaching virtually. And I get lonesome only talking about work anyway)