It’s been quite a week, right? I don’t know what’s been going on in your part of the world, but here, it’s UTTER CRAZYTOWN.

So this week kind of kicked my ass six different ways, and then a seventh for good measure. SO MUCH ASS-KICKERY. But now it is the weekend. Well, kind of the weekend. I still have one more day of work and THEN I get my one day off. Watch out, one day off! I’m coming for you!

So here was my week in a nutshell. Ready for the craziness? I know you are. It’s going to be the most exciting.

So at the beginning of the week, I had TWO FULL DAYS OFF! I spent one of those two days cleaning the house. Not JUST cleaning. DEEP-cleaning. SEVEN FULL HOURS of cleaning. I threw away – are you ready for this? – SEVEN BAGS OF GARBAGE. Don’t ask too many questions about how exactly I had seven full bags of garbage in a very small place. NO, I am not a hoarder. I just haven’t done a huge purge in a while. Sometimes you just need to get rid of shit, you know?

Casualities in the great cleaning of 2013 = my lava lamp, which FLEW OFF THE TABLE and COMMITTED SUICIDE ON THE RUG (or maybe I smacked it with my hip, I never said I was graceful) and then all the lava juice started leaking out and I don’t know if that’s poison or not, so I had to throw it away. Sigh. Goodbye, purple lava lamp, you were just too cool for me. Also, I blew up my brand-new vaccuum, but my mom assures me that I didn’t really blow it up, I just probably clogged up the filters and I need to clean them and all will be well. I did find one of my favorite necklaces that I thought was lost to the ages; I didn’t, however, find a missing letter that I’ve been looking for, which was disheartening. Who knows where that ended up. Dumbcat hid for most of the day because there was just too much going on for him and things smelled like citrus. He HATES things that smell like citrus. Citrus makes him make cranky faces. Once I was done and he realized I’d found a lot of his favorite toys under the couch, though, he was VERY pleased. (And randomly, today, he somehow found a way to put one of those toys on the bookcase? I have no idea how he got that there. It was a feat of wonder.)

Then the OTHER day off, I did NOTHING. Well, no. I did lots of things, but they were all very relaxy. I wrote, I read, I watched television, I played on the internet, I ate a lot of popsicles. Oh, and also snowcones. I totally bought a snowcone maker. SUMMER YOU WILL NOT CONQUER ME THIS YEAR! Well, no. It’s not really a snowcone maker. It’s a shaved ice maker. Which is LIKE a snowcone maker only the ice is a lot finer. And I got delicious snowcone juice. But I think snowcone juice makers need to step it up for those of us who want things that are sugar-free because we don’t just want cherry and fruit punch flavors. I randomly found a blue raspberry flavor at Bed Bath and Beyond but SERIOUSLY, people, there are a BILLION flavors that are sugary, GET WITH IT, YO.

Seriously, best purchase ever.

Anyway, my shaved ice maker is the best thing ever. It makes a gigantic bowl of shaved ice and then you dump all the flavoring over it and it is the MOST DELICIOUS and also the most cooling. It was a very good purchase. I don’t regret it in the least.

(Oh, I was shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond because I had to buy a bridal shower gift. Were you aware that when someone gets married you get them a shower gift AND a wedding gift? This is the best scam ever. I’m going to marry Dumbcat just for the gifts. Can I do that? You guys will give me gifts, right? TWO TIMES THE GIFTS? Anyway, I bought a good shower gift and then also bought myself some things like snowcone juice and a new Pyrex measuring cup since I dropped mine in the sink and glass went EVERYWHERE and I’m still finding it in random places and I go to use it at least once a week and curse the day I was born clumsy.)

Oh, measuring cup, I miss you. Why are you so shattery?

OK, so anyway, then the week happened. Work was busy, blah blah blah, and there’s this thing happening that I can’t talk about because chicken-counting so I’ll just say it’s a thing that’s equal parts scary and exciting and leave it at that, and if you want to cross your fingers for me, or whatever you do to pass along the good vibes, it’d be appreciated.

THEN, ready for this? I don’t know if you are, because it’s terrible-awesome-scary.

WE HAD TWO TORNADOES!

Real photo of a real tornado here! Whoo!

Is that really how the plural of tornado is spelled? Goodness, that looks terrible. But then again, so does “tornados” and the internet says either are right but both look like I’m illiterate.

On Wednesday, the weathermen started creaming themselves. First they were all “thunderstorms coming, y’all.” Then they were all “SEVERE thunderstorms!” Then they started running around like weirdos. “POSSIBLE FLASH FLOODS!” “ZOMG MAYBE A TORNADO!!!!”

I thought they were full of shit. We never get tornadoes.

We totally got TWO tornadoes.

I went grocery shopping – no rain. No thunder. Nothing. Bleh. Got home. Put away the groceries. Called Mom and Dad. Dad was all, “It’s raining there!” (Dad always believes the weather channel rather than me.) “No, it’s not, Dad,” I said. “IT SAYS IT IS!” said Dad. I assured him I was actually IN the weather and there was NO RAIN. He sounded skeptical.

Then. THEN! Out of NOWHERE! BAM WENT THE THUNDER! WHOOSH WENT THE WIND! My phone made the emergency broadcast noise and told me to STAY IN THE HOUSE FLASH FLOODS ARE A’COMIN’! (Phones do that? Good grief, that scared the bejeebers out of me.)

We had about 45 minutes or so of the craziest storm ever. The windows rattled. I planted some things and put them on the porch this past weekend and one of them just blew RIGHT off the porch and down onto the lawn. It was a casualty of FORCES OF NATURE! No strawberries from THAT pot! I forgot the window was open in the bedroom and when I ran in to close it the curtains were SOAKED! The power went on and off and on and off! Dumbcat freaked out and attached himself to my leg!

Then everything settled down and I ventured out onto the porch and everything was weirdly golden outside and some aluminum came off one of my neighbors’ buildings and hit their car but other than the flying pot of strawberries, all was well here.

However, we actually had two tornadoes in the area (one picked up a man and THREW HIM THREW THE WALL OF A BUILDING!) and so many trees were down and someone on Facebook reported (so take it with a grain of salt) 25,000 people were without power when it was done. On my drives to and from work the past couple of days, I’ve seen lines down, a ton of National Grid trucks, and, in one case, a tree in the middle of someone’s roof.

Look at this! Seriously, that was one whopper of a storm, you guys.

As long as I’m safe, I’m totally invigorated by crazy weather. And other than being afraid I was going to lose ALL my plants I’d just planted from my porch, I was safe. Dumbcat didn’t think he was, but he was. Silly boy. I will not let the twister take you to Oz.

Then, FINALLY, on Thursday night, the whole office (give or take half of the office) went bowling. I like bowling, but I’m not very good at it. Dad tried to teach me how to bowl when I was younger and he yelled “FOLLOW THROUGH!” so loud I got upset and left the bowling  alley and sat in the car until they were done. (Dad says, “You always say I was yelling at you. You just weren’t listening, so I had to talk LOUDLY.”)

FOLLOW THROUGH!!!

I was, as expected, not very good. We bowled two…what are they called, sets? Frames? I don’t even know. There were four of us on the team and we got to bowl two complete times twice. Sets, I think, but I could be wrong. The first time I didn’t do terribly and got two strikes and two spares and then totally got to bowl in the special bonus round at the end. (“That’s just the tenth frame,” Dad said. “No, the special bonus round! No one else got to! Because I got a strike, I got to go again!” “Yes. That’s the TENTH FRAME, that’s how that WORKS,” said Dad. “Well, no one else got to do it. It was therefore a bonus, and SPECIAL,” I said. This made Dad laugh until he choked a little. Dad used to be in a league. He has awards and everything.) I ended up in second place with a 113 which I think is very respectable since I don’t know that I’ve ever broken 100 before. I tried to take a photo but the screen was too bright so it didn’t work. The SECOND time I apparently broke my arm and every time I bowled it went to the left and I got a 76 which I think is what kids get who need those bumpers in the gutters. I told Dad I lost that round to make everyone else feel better. He agreed that was very nice of me.

I was telling Dad about bowling and he got VERY upset. Why? Because of this.

Me: So the lanes tell you how fast you’re bowling.
Dad: What? No they don’t.
Me: Yes they do. The screen says how many miles per hour you’re throwing the ball. A. was the winner of that. He threw it 20 miles per hour.
Dad: Is that all? I think I could throw it MORE than that.
Me: OK. Anyway, he was all, “I want to beat my record!” so he had one pin standing, and he just PITCHED that ball, because he didn’t think he had any chance of knocking down that one pin anyway. And guess what happened?
Dad: I can’t even guess. He killed someone.
Me: That’s a very terrible guess.
Dad: I told you I couldn’t even guess.
Me: His ball went in the gutter at the very end, and then POPPED OUT and knocked down the pin. SPARE!
Dad: No, that doesn’t count. That’s not a spare. Once the ball goes in the gutter, you’re done. He cheated.
Me: No, it is. The computer said it was.
Dad: What computer? You brought a computer?
Me: NO, Dad. The computer over the LANE. That keeps SCORE for you.

Dad: Wait. Wait a minute. What? Something that keeps SCORE for you? No. YOU keep score. With a pencil and paper.
Me: Where would you even GET a pencil and paper?
Dad: They give it to you with the shoes.
Me: No, they just give you the shoes. This isn’t 1977. A computer keeps score for you now. You put your name in it and it tracks your score. No one even KNOWS how to keep score anymore.
Dad: I can’t believe this. I. CAN. NOT. BELIEVE. THIS. I am never bowling again. I would bring my own pencil and paper and keep score. This is RIDICULOUS.
Me: Dad, I don’t think anyone’s kept score for themselves since…well, the last time I kept score for myself was probably the early 90s. That’s like 20 years ago.
Dad: I can’t believe this. WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO?
Me: It’s the relentless march of progress. You can’t stop it. It even comes to bowling alleys. There are also strobe lights and they play Katy Perry songs while you bowl.
Dad: I AM SO MAD RIGHT NOW. Who the hell is Katy Perry.

Now I am going to bed so I can deal with the billions of “MY AIR CONDITIONER IS BROKEN” and “WE HAVE NO POWER” calls I’m bound to get at work tomorrow. Happy Saturday, people of the bloggiverse. Hopefully you are somewhere a little cooler than here, where it is in the nineties. THE NINETIES. In MAY. Well, it’s June now, but it was in the nineties this week, and this week was May. I find this as upsetting as Dad finds computerized bowling.