Storm Fury

Last night was our first taste of this year's summer monsoon/storm season to come. I'll let you decide if the 'Fury' part refers to the storm itself or to us by the end of the night...

1. Lightning begins, with some distant thunder. On the phone with my sister wishing her a happy birthday. 'Oh, there's lightning outside. Oh, it's kinda cool. Big streaks across the sky. Yeah, but it's still, like, 103 degrees out here at 9:30 at night.'
2. (10 minutes later) Outside on the back porch with Eric, enjoying some of the lightning. Wondering if it's going to rain, too. Thinking we should probably cover the barbecue after using it last week, since the wind is picking up and we don't want to lose the barbecue cover.
3. (2 minutes later) Rain begins pouring down. Combined with the wind, we get pretty soaked as we finish up covering the barbecue. Head inside.
4. After another couple minutes, looking out the front windows, watching the rain gush off our roof, wondering if our little tree will withstand the wind.
5. (10 minutes pass...) Take a look out the back door and notice that all our patio furniture is GONE. A table and 4 chairs. Take a quick look around the yard (thankful that the rain has almost stopped, even though the wind continues) and find all 5 pieces around the corner by the RV gate. Collect furniture and stack together on the porch.
6. (30 seconds later) Hear a huge 'BANG!' and realize that the entire recycling can has blown over. Everything quickly empties out of the can and yes, it was almost full. (Side note: If you're reading this and live within a mile of us, sorry if you find coloring pages and junk mail from us in your yard.) Scoop up as much of the recycling as we can chase around the yard - aside from all the paper from our shredder. It's still out there...
7. (Another 30 seconds pass) Realize that there's now a hole in Kristen's swimming pool from the chaos, and proceed to empty ALL the water out and salvage what we can before having to throw the pool away. Eric stabs the pool repeatedly as we shove it into previously-offending recycling can. (I'm sure it was more to get all the air out then to vent frustrations...)

So, to recap our evening, we almost lost our patio furniture, scattered our recycling across the neighborhood (and our own yard), and killed Kristen's pool. Fun night.