Mainly, the basement is a catacomb of Amy and Todd's belongings. We had to move several things in order for us to get back behind the furnace. And even then it wasn't totally safe. There are windows and a door with windows down in the basement. Being behind the furnace, I was fairly shielded from getting blasted with glass fragments from the door and the window beside it but the window on the other wall was right beside us. Bill hasn't used his snowmobile suit in years but it came in handy as a partial shield from that side window. And he propped the folded up card table against his legs. He was sitting beside me on a little plastic stepstool. So, we sat there with the lights on listening intently for the sound of a roaring freight train bearing down upon us except for the brief minute that Bill took to run upstairs and get my portable mp3/FM radio player and more batteries. I was preoccupied with phone since I was talking to Amy. She was letting me know exactly where the storm was since she lived in Fairfield and wasn't affected by it. I told her that I was hearing any thunder anymore and wondered if that was a good sign or a bad sign. You know that eerie quiet everyone talks about before the fury of the storm. That's where we were. And she was saying that according to the TV weathermen that the storm was right above us.

No one knew for sure if there was a tornado hovering around or not. Certainly there was some wind shear. And there were citizens reporting that they had seen funnel clouds and actually a tornado on the ground. But the people in the know about these things couldn't confirm that there had actually been any tornados that touched down or not. So, Bill and I were sitting there waiting imagining swirling clouds going over our house and no one could say for sure if there were or not. That was the closest I had ever come to witnessing a tornado, if there was one. I'm sure that there wasn't an actual tornado over us but there could have been rotating clouds. At that point we weren't going out to make sure. There continued to be just silence as Amy gave me the blow-by-blow. The storm passed over quickly and she finally said that it had moved east of us. We felt it was safe enough to go back upstairs. I told her goodbye and thanks for the help.

First thing I did was turn the TV on again. Amy had said there was another section of the storm nearing Oxford again so I needed to take a look at it. Bill joined me in the bedroom to watch the reports, too. Even though it was 10:30 and his bedtime, he wasn't going to sleep yet, not with a possible repeat of what we had just been through. So, we sat on our beds and watched the ever streaming reports of the next storm. Thankfully, although there was heavy rain and some rotating clouds, it wasn't as bad as the first one. And it pretty much stayed just north of us but we got some rain and we could see great lightning flashes and hear booming of thunder. To pass the time we watched a Daily Show segment. After that was over, the tornado warnings and thunderstorm warnings were over for us so we were able to go to bed.

But before going to sleep, I remembered that it was primary night in Minnesota and South Dakota. Eagerly, I turned to the news channels to see the results. Very happily, I saw that Obama had reached the amount of delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination to be the presidential candidate. That was a great way to end the night of thrills. I am ecstatic that he will be the candidate but a little worried, too. There are too many people stuck in time and bigotry, like West Virginia and Kentucky, who can't stomach the thought of a black president. Geez, people, grow up!!! There is no difference. If there is a difference, it's only because you are projecting one because you want to hang onto your archaic notions that the black people should still be slaves. I can't believe that this country still has such petty people.