Domestic Psychology

storm cellar vs basement

// June 22nd, 2011 // No Comments » // weather

My mother’s parents lived in Natchez Trace Park, just outside of Parsons, TN. We spent many weekends at my grandparents’ house to “help” with the farm. Every summer, my brothers and I would spend an entire week there while my mother reorganized every square inch of our bedrooms without us at home to interrupt. The only drawback to being with grandparents who indulged our every whim and fed us what seemed like five meals a day, was the fear of storms. It wasn’t the storm itself that made even the bravest child silently wish they were at home where they cluelessly felt immune to danger. Storms at the grandparents’ house meant running to the storm cellar. If I made a horror movie based on my childhood fears, it would take place in a storm cellar.

Between my grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ homes was a patch of purple phlox. Underneath those flowers, a small room was hidden. Getting to the room meant walking to the road and following it to an undersized door that looked like it was the entrance to a Hobbit’s tiny cottage. After moving the heavy block that kept the door closed, the room revealed itself to be… completely dark. Seeing inside that room in bright daylight required a flashlight or lantern, so running on the two lane, curvy road in pitch blackness, wind and sideways rain only to be rushed into a completely dark hole in the ground would have every person in the movie theater screaming, “Don’t go in there!”

The wall with the doorway was empty except for several old boards propped in a corner. The remaining three walls were lined with two by fours on cinder blocks. What my grandmother called dirt dobber nests, hung ominously from the holes in the cinder blocks that lined the walls and supported the benches. The nests that were hidden behind spider webs seemed only slightly less threatening. In another corner, a large bucket filled only with spiderwebs served as a motivator to make any thoughts about needing a potty to disappear completely. Wood crates filled with home canning jars covered in dust were tucked underneath the thigh splinter benches. I never knew what food was so plentiful in the garden that they sacrificed several dozen jars of it to the storm cellar demons but considered it life sustaining enough to eat while buried alive and awaiting certain death from blowing debris, mud slides, drowning and bugs. The botulism probably wouldn’t have time to take effect before unseen goblins picked us off, one by one.

When it storms now, we pile on our bed in the cool, quiet basement. Surrounded by pillows, blankets and snuggly children, the adults track the storms on social media while listening to the police scanner. The children play games, read books and munch on snacks that are fresh from the grocery. The dogs snore on beanbags and we take turns wearing the snake. If we lose power AND 3G at the same time, everyone whines and acts like it’s the zombie apocalypse.

Ice, ice bay-bee

// January 13th, 2011 // No Comments » // me, weather

After several days snowed/iced in the house, Sarah and I ventured out to get the stir-crazy children something for dinner that would cheer them up aka Chic-fil-a. When we got in the car that hadn’t been used for days, I had my first wave of regret. The car was covered in two inches of icy snow. After unsuccessfully searching the car for the ice scraper, regret number two rolled over my frozen toes.

I tried scraping the windshield with a piece of cardboard from a notebook, a coloring book and a stack of Legos. The only result was frozen fingers. I texted Doug.
Me: “We have no ice scraper.”
Doug: “Look in the car.”
Me: “I am IN the car and there is no scraper.”
Doug: “Did you look under the seat?”
Me: “No scraper. There is no scraper.”
Doug: “The wiper fluid has anti-freeze. Just squirt it a few times.”

At this point in the story, I will interrupt the texting copy-paste to acknowledge that I can see you shaking your heads in response to this suggestion. I did not shake my head. I squirted wiper fluid even though the blades were frozen to the windshield. With each squirt, a fresh layer of ice glazed over the windshield. It was a lovely, textured ice, but it was the opposite of helpful.
Doug: “You could put the sidewalk de-icer on the windshield.”

This is the part of the story where we sat and stared at the windshield, waiting for the ice to move.
Sarah: “It’s moving!”
Me: “I’ll try the wipers.”
One click of the previously immobile wipers and the tiny de-icer pellets flew in every direction. Sarah screamed at the wipers.
“Stoooop!”

Cold and frustrated, we sat and waited for the car to defrost the ice. It took so long that the neighbor walked her dog, Amy called me whimpering that she was starving, Sarah changed the radio station twice and I mentally composed my response to Doug for his helpful wiper fluid suggestion.

After what felt like forever, we began our journey. I turned out of our cove and the car started to slide . . . backwards. Sarah offered her experienced advice from one year with a driver’s license. “Drive! Just drive!” The fact that the car was in drive, my foot was on the gas and we were sliding backwards as the car decided on its’ own that it wanted to smash into a utility pole didn’t deter Sarah’s insistence that I only needed to drive.

I backed into the cove and went directly to the driveway. Sarah stomped in the house, convinced that I should have tried harder to get out of the cove. I walked in the house and Evan burst into tears at the absence of Chic-fil-a in my hands. Noah mumbled something about not needing to eat dinner as he drooped out of the room and I made a desperate phone call to Doug.

“Even though they have eaten eleven small meals and seven between meal snacks, the children are starving and may call DCS to report me for child neglect if they don’t get Chic-fil-a tonight.” Doug brought home Chic-fil-a and was the most popular person in the world. His celebrity status lasted until a half an hour after our friend drove Tommy home from the movies. “Doug? I’m stuck in your cove.”

humidity chronicles

// May 17th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // relatives, TN, weather

Over the weekend, we took the youngest children to a place in middle TN that was an integral part of my childhood. A place that I haven’t visited in over a decade and an area that I told goodbye during my grandmother’s funeral. A place where time stands still. Oh, wait. The trees are taller now. Also, the basement game room was sacrificed to install a much needed elevator. Other than that . . . same guy in charge, same humidity, same last names and same, same, same. Did I mention the humidity?

There’s a reason I never successfully had a frizz-free day until I moved to East TN. West and middle TN have fungus seasons when the muggy heat saps away the energy and desire to do anything except sit, nap or read. The recent TN monsoons have transformed the normally humid weather into the mosquito coast. The lush green illusion that was the park’s septic field is now a foul-smelling, toxic wasteland. The bugs are growing and multiplying into rain forest monsters. The hotel room was physically soggy. The carpet squished with every step and the clothes in our suitcase absorbed water so rapidly that I expected them to smell like the nasty kitchen sponge I threw away last week.

When the room temperature was higher than the outside temperature and the pages of books started to curl, Doug walked to the hotel desk to see if all the rooms were a swamp or just the ones that overlooked the lake. A few minutes later, we were switched to a room with dry carpeting and a temperature below 80 degrees. It was like moving from the cave to the hatch. With no phone signal, I settled in to use the Internet to call the teenagers we left at home. Doug went to report the room change to the rest of the family.

An hour later, Doug returned from telling my brother our new location. It took some work to find my brother, since he had also switched rooms. His preschooler flushed a wrapped bar of soap, overflowed the toilet and flooded their room. My mother’s careful placement of the entire family in a nice row of rooms turned into a middle of the night Chinese fire drill. Everyone settled in and slept without the distractions of absolutely anything resembling civilization nearby.

Unbeknown to us, at some time in the night, Amy came down with stomach plague. We didn’t know, because Amy switched rooms to be with her cousins. While she did her imitation of Eyjafjallajokull, her Aunt pounded on our hotel room door. The empty hotel room with soggy carpet. The room that Doug told my OTHER brother we were no longer using. The Aunt gave up and sent the uninformed brother to pound on our door. When this failed, they tried calling the empty hotel room. Maybe they called our signal-less cell phones. I’m certain they called us some choice names. If I had known we were playing the world’s meanest practical joke, I would have moved our car to the employee parking lot.

late night snowball fight

// January 30th, 2010 // No Comments » // Doug, flickr, weather

snow day

// January 29th, 2010 // 4 Comments » // school, weather

I know that it is 2:10 in the afternoon and the roads and skies are clear. School could have released one hour early instead of being closed the entire day. However, the looks on faces when school was canceled last night, were absolutely priceless. Sparkling eyes and contagious giggles electrified the air. There was even a little happy dance. I think the joy outweighs the risk of running out of allotted snow days. The giggling, dancing teachers clearly needed an unscheduled play day.

Brrr.

// January 9th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // flickr, TN, weather

forecast parking update

// December 5th, 2009 // No Comments » // knoxville, weather

In what has to be a rarer occurrence than a Bigfoot sighting, everyone in Knoxville woke up to snow on Saturday. It may have been gone by afternoon, but for a few blissful hours, the children and dogs may as well have been riding unicorns down rainbows.

forecast parking

// December 3rd, 2009 // No Comments » // home, weather

We live in a tiny, older, working class neighborhood with residents who have been here for decades. The roads are more than a little bit steep. There are a few things that everyone in the neighborhood knows. When it rains, the creek is fast and dangerous. Once the leaves fall off the trees, the people at the top of hills can see into everyone’s homes. B burns leaves and branches in the creek whenever it is dry. If children do something stupid, someone in the neighborhood WILL tell the child’s parents. If something breaks, the city and county will both claim that it’s the other team’s problem. When there’s ice on the roads, the only people getting out of the neighborhood are the ones who were parked in the street at the top of the hill.

So, would someone please explain to me why all the neighbors are parked at the hilltop? Do they seriously think it’s going to snow tonight? Did I miss a big weather announcement for tonight? I know it’s forecast for tomorrow, but how often does that forecast come true in Knoxville?

still raining

// October 15th, 2009 // No Comments » // flickr, play, weather

it’s a bit windy out there

// February 11th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // flickr, local, weather