She's Got Moxie!

A Moxie festival!! My mother took me to a Moxie festival! Some teeny, tiny, insignificant town called Lisbon Falls has this big weekend long festival called "Moxie Days". And yes, I mean the soda.

I don't even like Moxie.

Anyway, we had this HUGE storm the other day over here in New Hampshire. I was abruptly awoken by this incredible clap of thunder only to discover that it was not just terrentially raining, but it was also hailing. Add some tornado like winds, and that was my Tuesday. I spend the first few hours running around my house like a crazy person making sure we had food, water, lights, and that the cats weren't dead. I managed to call my family (ever member of which was conveniently in a different place) before the power went out, twice. At some point, I don't quite remember when, my friend Valerie came over and the weather started to lighten up for a bit.

Of course, when I say "for a bit" I mean about a half an hour. With no power, Valerie amused ourselves by playing Battleship (I lost, by the way. Potential end of the world and I lost at Battleship!) and were about to embark on an exciting game of Monopoly when the great flood returned. We gathered up every light source we could find, I think it was one flashlight, three lanterns, two oil lamps, one candle, and a reading light, and went down into my basement. We also managed to collect in the chaos a box of wheat crackers (which actually tasted quite good, you should definetly try some sometime) and an UNO deck. About five minutes after we finally got ourselves setteled down there, and I had begun to deal the UNO cards, the wall started spewing water. That's right, my downstairs, colonial, basement (my only sanctuary from the apocolyptic storm outside) started to leak.

It would be wrong to say I paniced. I didn't quite panic. I did however scream "THE WALLS ARE LEAKING!!!!" at the top of my lungs. The "leaking" soon stopped though, and we began our game with lighter spirits.

Needless to say, Valerie and both found the entire ordeal utterly hilarious. We spent a great deal of time down there laughing about our current plight. Whether it was the wall leaking, or the oil lamp burning out, or the oil lamp smelling like hell (My God, those things stink!) we managed to get a great laugh out of it all. I'm not entirely sure how long we actually spent down there. It's summer you know, your sense of time just goes down the drain. I'm pretty sure we didn't spend anymore then two hours down there. Eventually the storm calmed down and my Dad came home and told us to come back upstairs. He seemed to think we were being rediculous or something. But you know, he wasn't there when the storm was at it's peak, and my mom agrees, she would have done the same thing.

The hail did little to know damage to the house, aside from making our deck look like a wreck. My mom's car was completely trashed though. The hail had produced deep divits all over her car and broken her windshield. She got it fixed though. Other then that, the storm had pretty much no effect on me. The power came back a few hours later, and we watched Doctor Who.

It was a funny storm though. We had no warning about it, or at least I didn't. I hadn't even been expecting it to rain. And then all of a sudden, I wake up and all hell has broken lose in my backyard. Another wierd thing is that it doubled back, and actually hit us twice. What the storm did prove however, is how different people handle a crisis. Valerie, for example, is very useful to have in a crisis. She's very calm, always make's sure we have what we need, and usually lightens the mood a bit by saying the entire thing is histerical. I, however, proved to be useless in a crisis. I run around manically closing windows, getting lights, yelling at Valerie to do stuff. I probably just should have ran to the basement and let Valerie handle everything.

All and all though, it's been a pretty exciting week. I mean with Moxie festivals and apocolyptic weather. And then after all that, it went back to being really boring. I've spent my last two days sitting at home and taking messages for people. For example:

"Hello?"

"Barbara?"

"No, this is Nelly, her daughter."

(disapointed) "Oh." (Suddenly cheefull as if talking to a little kid) "Well then, could you please take a message for me?"

"Sure" (takes out pad of paper) "Ok."

"Do you have a pad of paper?"

"Yes, I do. And a pencil, you can give me the message now."

"Well alright. This is Sally from Stratham Vet, that's S-T-R-"

"I know how to spell Stratham, Miss."

"Oh, right. Sorry. Anyway, this is Sally from Stratham Vet calling to confirms Hunneman's apointment for Friday. Do you have all that?"

"Yes, thank you."

"All right. Take care dear. Bubye."

If I have to take one more message from one more overly cheerful reseptionist I think I'll take the message in Spanish. No wait, Lithuanian. That will REALLY confuse people!! Anyway, that's been my life for the past two days. It's been so routine that yesterday just sort of feels like an extenstion of today. I'm like that guy in Groundhog Day, trapped eternally in the dull exsistance of one single day.

However, the storm totally made up for that. Before my grandfather died (see, "In Memorium") he was a meteorologist, or a weatherman. He would have loved a storm like this. A few of my younger cousins are convinced he's up there controling the New England weather now. And you know what, I might just beleive that. If he did see how relativly boring our lives have all been lately, I could totally beleive he sent that storm to keep us on our toes. Sometimes a good crisis is all you need.

Adios Amigos.