Vets, Visits, & Tornadoes

What a day!  I started the day tracking the beastie boys down to take them to the vet for their comprehensive exam and dental cleaning.  Pinkerton was fine, but I had to crawl under the bed to get Bandit; he absolutely HATES going to the vet unless I stay w/ him.  Then, on the way to the vet, Pinkerton must have gotten nervous because he peed in his nylon carrier, which means it was all over the cloth car seat.  Fortunately I had paper towels in the car and was able to draw most of it up; when I got home, the seat received a liberal dosing of vinegar, and is now finishing drying out.  Bandit was NOT a happy camper when I went to pick them up, but seems to have forgiven me now.  They're both a little wonky after the anesthesia, but nothing major.

I guess I should be glad they were well behaved yesterday, 'cause Sunday I was pretty grossed out when I found a dead mouse in the living room and realized that when I woke up to hear one of them scurrying around in the bedroom, they were probably chasing down the poor little thing.  Overall, I was very thankful they didn't wake me up by dropping a dead mouse in my face . . .

Next on the schedule was a brisk mile long walk with a friend, then back home to take care of some odds and ends before checking facebook and other fun computer stuff.  Two of my high school friends (brother and sister) reminded me that 38 years ago today they lived through the F5 Xenia tornado (it was almost categorized an F6; winds were over 300 mph) after their house was hit directly by it.  So to find out recently that tornadoes were twisting away down in Dallas, TX hit home for two reasons:  one being the memory of Xenia's 1974 tornado and the other being my brother and his family live in Plano (a Dallas suburb).  Fortunately, I received a text from my brother saying they were all fine.  Whew.  Sharing a photo I found indicating the damage from 1974 - people who lived through it said you could look for what seemed like miles and view the path the tornado took, just from the damage.

This second photo was posted by my friend who was in his house (the one marked My house) with his mother and sister when the tornado hit.  Mom and sis were buried under debris for a while, but sis got free and found mom; brother was  under a wall, which was removed by neighbors.  Believe it or not, physical injuries were limited to scratches and bruises.  

With thoughts of the 1974 Xenia tornado in the back of my mind, I headed out to visit Mom.  What was the first thing she told me?  They'd had a tornado drill earlier that day, followed by a presentation by the Red Cross and a weather person from a local TV station.  When I left (around 3:15 after the vet called to say the beastie boys were more than ready to head home), I hadn't heard anything about the weather in TX, so I was a bit surprised when we all got home and I saw several posts about bad weather, and then suddenly received a text from my brother that they were fine.

What an emotional whirlwind of a day.  Makes me very thankful to have time with the people I care about, and having fun in simple things like coloring Easter eggs.  Life's too short not to look for the good in life, and so am I.  Figure that one out?