My grands live out in the California desert in a little area of town that is basically a retirement community. They live in a trailer; not the kind of trailer that you could hook up to a truck and move your home in a day, but a big double wide with foundation, air conditioning, that sort of thing. None-the-less it’s in the desert and when we stepped out of the air conditioned truck last weekend our clothes instantly stuck to our skin and we were drenched in sweat. Even Lily stopped, looked up at us and said, “Hot.” Yeah, kido, but the phrase you’re looking for is “DAMN HOT.” We scurried inside and gratefully accepted the tall drinks of water thrust in our desperate hands. We sat and visited for a bit, showing off the baby and watching Lily perform her usual antics. Good times. The grands are getting older, having more trouble and are set to move into an apartment with some more assistance. Grandpa wanted to take us over and show off the new digs and treat us to lunch in the dining room. You bet. We had to take two cars (part of the reason for the hunt for a minivan) and on the way over I turned to Mark and said, “You know, we’re taking our kids to a retirement home dining hall… they’re gonna get mobbed.” Sure enough, they seated us right by the exit and every single passer-by exclaimed on their cuteness. I thought one lady with more plastic surgery than Elizabeth Taylor was going eat up Lily in one scary bite. I fended her off of the cheek pinching by pointing out that my child was
We got back to the house and sat for a spell more, when I heard a noise I haven’t heard in a while. “Mark, did you leave the truck windows down?”
“Yeah.”
“Go close them, right now.”
It was then that the rain hit, furious and loud on the tin roof of the carport. He dashed out into it and closed up the truck, coming back soaked. Within minutes the streets were flooded, empty packing boxes flowing out the carport to escape down the street, power went out… it was wild. I handed off Anya to my Grandma and Mark and I ran around trying to rescue the boxes my grandfather had so painstakingly collected from behind the Vons. Lily thought it was amazing and kept dragging my grandma from window to door to look excitedly as the hail came down. We all sat stunned (and damp) as buckets of water slammed against the windows, some of it horizontal and violent. The old folk’s network went into effect, the phone ringing as neighbors checked in on each other. One even reported a twister touching down on the east end of town. Great, I thought, and we’re in a freaking trailer park.
Luckily the whole thing passed in less than an hour without one sighting of Dorothy or Toto and we were on our way out of town to go see Daphne_Blue and her family. The flood channels were full, the drivers all in a bit of a daze and the whole world steamed as the sun baked off the storm.
We had a blast at Daph’s. Go check out some of the few shots over at Flickr, just click on the picture below to get you there.
