Last night Mother Nature came a callin’ in my area code, and she wasn’t very motherly. She stomped through my neighborhood like a fourteen year old girl who had been denied something she wanted, but did not need. Sirens wailed, the stormtrakkers on the tube dazzled us with their latest meteorolgical visual aids while chattering continuously – taking little time to breathe; and then the satelite dish went out.
The rain came in torrents. The gutters on my roof quickly filled to capactity and flowed over the edges. The wind howled and seemed to screech at me, “Here’s something for you!”, then lit up my house with blinding flashes of lightning followed immediately with thunderous echoless booms that rattled the windows still filled with the lightning that had preceded it. Flash… sizzle… boom! “And here’s another one!” Flash-sizzle-boom!
This morning when I looked out into my back yard, it did indeed look as if someone had had a hissy fit out there. Big limbs, little limbs, twigs scatterd over the entire lawn. Some still dangled in the tree, but my sixty year old dutch elm had remained steadfast, appeared to stand proud and only slightly battered amidst its own clutter. As I surveyed this scene I thought to myself, I know what the wind meant. I also knew what I would be doing for the remainder of the day.
Later in the morning, as I sawed, snipped and stuffed tree debris into Sam’s Club yard waste bags, my two and-a-half year old Alyvia came for a visit. It wasn’t long before she joined me in the back yard. Strapped on her shoulders was a small back pack bearing a picture of – Backpack (Dora and Diego fans will know what I’m talking about). The see-through bag was trimmed in purple and matched her purplish-pink clogs. She sat herself down on the hard sidewalk, opened Backpack and withdrew a blank pad and an assortment of crayons. She crossed her legs at the ankles and settled into drawing and coloring. I settled back into sawing, snipping, and stuffing.
Moments later: “Here’s something for you pa-pa!” A drawing; squiggled lines, crooked triangles, red circles.
Flash… sizzle… boom!
We both returned to our work.
Moments later: “Here’s another one for you pa-pa!” Another drawing; squiggled lines, a crooked square, a green circle.
Flash-sizzle-boom…
Now… I knew what the wind meant.
Grampy Lash 
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