Friday, August 29, 2008

Mmmmmmonsoon!

My husband plays softball every Thursday with his buddies. Yesterday, they had two games, and since hanging out at the ballpark for 3 1/2 hours in the heat didn't sound like fun, I told him I'd meet him there for the second game only.

Well, change of plans.

He called me shortly after he left; seems he got a flat tire on the way there. He says, oh, when you leave can you just take this other exit? Turns out, there's a spare but no jack in that car, and we just never noticed. The perils of owning a pre-owned car! I asked if he'd like me to leave right now, and he says, "If you want..."

Silly husband.

So I pull on my jeans and sneakers, grab the container of antibacterial wipes, because I know this will be messy, tell the dogs to be good while I'm gone, and go to fetch my husband. He gets the tire changed and we decide since I'm already halfway there that there's no point in taking two separate cars, so we leave his (since mine has better a/c!) in a nearby Walmart parking lot. We get to the ball part just in time for him to be able to play in the second game.

Yeah, the second game that got rained out right after the first inning!

It was pouring really hard, so we all went inside the little restaurant/bar area, chatted a bit, and when the rain slowed down to a sprinkle, we all headed to our cars. So much for softball! This was the THIRD Thursday that we've had rain, and therefore, had games rained out. What are the odds?

Since we had to stop at Walmart to get the car, and we didn't have a chance to eat dinner, I decided that we should grab a frozen pizza. We also picked up this:

It was three bucks. How stinking cute is that?

Well, as we were walking out of the store, we noticed that there were quite a few people loitering out front. Turns out, that while we were playing in the baby section, the storm got it's second wind! It was just pouring, I'm talking that heavy rain that comes down in big fat drops that are icy cold and HURT. It was almost raining sideways, due to the wind, and the poor trees were just helplessly flailing about. We stood there for about ten minutes, to see if it would ease up, but that wasn't going to happen. The water was already about an inch or two deep in front of the store, so my husband decided to go get the car and pick me up at the entrance. It was too dangerous to take a chance on slipping and falling while trying to run to the car, you know?

So now I'm panicking, because I am terrified to drive in heavy rain like that. I can handle some rain, but this was a serious deluge. I hydroplaned once, and that freaked me out enough to never want to try it again. We ended up leaving the other car there at Walmart! Good thing too, because the rain actually got WORSE on the way home. There were times where you could barely see out the front windshield and everyone was driving 35 mph with their flashers on the freeway.

We got home, and there were trees that were half blown down through the entire neighborhood. The parking lot of our complex was just flooded. We were thankful to be in the SUV, so we didn't have to worry about clearing most of it, as opposed to the Stratus, which is very low to the ground. After we parked, we realized that the only way to get home was to wade through the three inch deep water. I was not about to ruin my nice sneakers, so I took them off and stashed them in the back of the car.

That water was flipping COLD!!! We made it inside, and that storm went on for several more hours. The sky looked like someone had installed strobe lights, there was so much lightning! I'm thankful that the dogs aren't afraid of thunder either, because for a while it was right over us, and really loud. I'm also thankful that we didn't lose power, because rain or no rain, August with no a/c is miserable.

My husband told me this morning that they reported on the news that the wind gusts reached up to 100 mph, and the Arizona State University football practice facility was just gone. It blew away!

Gotta love a good summer monsoon storm!

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1 Comments:

Blogger kingsqueen said...

Wow. I didn't realize you got weather like that in AZ. (I've never been west of Tulsa, OK so what do I know? LOL) That sounds like a serious storm there though. Does it cool the area off at all after that? Here it just makes it too humid to breathe afterwards when the sun comes back out, but I don't know if it does that in AZ where the heat is supposed to be "dry". At least that's what I've heard my whole life.

5:18 AM  

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