Pennies from Heaven . . . Not!

Pennies, nickels, quarters . . . golf balls, tennis balls and baseballs–all weather terms in Texas, as it turns out, used to describe the size of hail that often accompanies the thunderstorms that have been passing through with some frequency. To the weather forecasters credit, they often predict, to within minutes, when the storms will be passing through the communities in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex and to the credit of the of Texans, they seem to duck and cover as the storms pass and continue on after the rain stops.


As much needed as the rain is, it can't be good for the artists and performers at the Main Street Arts Festival in Fort Worth (pictured here on Friday afternoon) or the organizers of the Ennis Bluebonnet Trails Festival . . . who note on their website, Live entertainment will go on as planned only if weather permits! I'm thinking it was the voice of experience who suggested that disclaimer.

I'm less resilient and will probably wait until tomorrow, when the rain stops, the fog clears and threat of lightning, thunder and penny, nickel, quarter or any ball-sized hail has passed before deciding if art fair or bluebonnets are in my plans this weekend. I walked to the post office and to my favorite downtown café this morning sans umbrella and got soaked on the way home. But before the rain came, I found a new quilt block in the sidewalk . . . this is one of my new favorites.



We've already had a bit of excitement this week. On Wednesday, I came home to the sounds of live music. By the time I parked, I figured out it was probably coming from the direction of city hall; by the time I was inside my loft and still hearing it quite clearly, I realized it was likely a tea-bagger tax protest rally. While I found the patriotic musical performances pleasant enough, they later gave way to over-amplified shrieky, speaches that I couldn't understand but could still hear several blocks away with all my doors and windows closed. My little kitty Grace, didn't like the noise, from the beginning. I had come home to find her under the covers on my bed.

This is a relatively new behavior, that she and her brother Johnny Be Good developed on the road from Michigan to Texas and that Grace continues to fully embrace. Someone knocks on the door, Grace heads for the covers. Lightning strikes, heavy rain falls, someone starts moving furniture upstairs or, like Thursday night, the FIRE alarm for the building with a booming automated voice informing us that there has been an alarm in the building . . . she's a very alarmed kitty and wants to hide under the covers and definitely DOES NOT want to be put into her carrier and carried out of the building. For that matter, neither did her brother. I've never heard the two of them YOWL so loudly as we left the building, packed ourselves into the car and drove a couple blocks away to wait things out. According to them, you would have thought we were off on another 1200 mile cross-country road trip ;-)

Within an hour, the firemen had left and we were back inside. Both cats yowled loudly on the trip back inside, too . . . and one of my neighbors couldn't resist a sarcastic crack about how I had kept my kitties safe. Yep, I'm the old woman with cats on the floor–everyone else seems to be dog people. I got a good whiff of smoke near the elevator–it definitely wasn't a false alarm. today I was told by the property manager that i was a minor kitchen fire on the floors below me.