And you were there-and you, and you!

So, Wednesday night I went to bed about 11, as usual. It had been rainy and stormy all day, but I remember reading somewhere right before I went to bed that the unsettled, stormy weather had passed Austin that afternoon, so I didn't think about what the weather would be like overnight.

I woke up at 12:30 to drunks screaming in the street. This is not unusual even for a Wednesday when you live across the street from an old neglected co-op with a sign in the window that reads "House of Nuts", especially when you have to think twice about what they mean by Nuts-the delicious and nutritious pecans that litter the neighborhood and their cousins? Is it a play on the street name, which translated from Spanish means nuts? Or, is it because the people inside are...interesting, and have littered-I mean decorated- their porch and yard (I don't want to imagine the inside) with old, stained furniture, multi-colored christmas lights, newspaper dispensers (pointed toward the house), children's toys and odd, disheveled 'landscaping'? The unusual part about the screaming in the street was that it was that panicky people-won't-know-I'm-scared-if-I-make-a-joke kind of screaming. What kept me awake was the huge gust of wind and constant flashes of lightening. This was followed quickly by pure chaos. I jumped out of bed to look out the window, fascinated by the quick change of events, and soon became confused as to what to do, frightened and just a little excited. I like storms. They finally grew on me, thanks to Dad, but this one was just past the verge of being no fun at all. The rain was horizontal, and was soon followed by at least golf-ball-sized hail, which set off my car alarm and made the 'nuts' stop running around in the street. I heard a couple of "OW!"s over the din, and heard no more from them for the duration. It only lasted about 20 minutes, but felt like forever. I tried to open my door and watch out the screen door but the wind and changes in pressure were so severe that the door would get sucked closed right out of my hands. I've learned since that this was a textbook supercell storm.

I was one of the lucky ones in my apt. complex-walking through to get my mail the next day I felt shattered glass crunch under my feet and looked up to see nearly all of the windows on one side of the building cracked or broken, and the screens had hail-shaped holes in them like swiss cheese.

The walk to work the next day took half-again as long as usual, what with weaving around and jumping over limbs and debris. It's always a shame when the big old shade trees are victims of such quick, violent weather. The photos are typical of what downtown Austin will probably look like for a week or two while landscapers, auto body shops and window salesmen make a killing. The music accompanying my birthday weekend will be the droning of chainsaws.