Friday's Feast

Appetizer: If you could live on another continent for 1 year, which one would you choose?

That would be Europe. Including islands offshore of it.

Soup: Which browser do you use to surf the Internet?

Firefox

Salad: On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being highest), how much do you know about the history of your country?

8. I am not a historical scholar, but I certainly know enough to be literate and understand the news. I realized how little I knew when my son was taking AP US History and asked me questions. I often knew the answers, but there were some events I hadn't heard of.

Main Course: Finish this sentence: Love is…

...really complicated

Dessert: Have you ever been in or near a tornado?

WAY too many times for comfort. I am really spooked by them because of it. Examples:

1. Tornado that hit our elementary school and knocked a tree on my brother's kindergarten classroom. Same tornado where my dad was stuck in traffic and saw a truck picked up and set back down going the other way.

2. Tornado that hit north of our town and wiped out my dad's friend's farm. All the hogs were gone. The house was gone (luckily they had gone to check on the grandparents at the next house). And it looked like a road was being paved through their woods. A wide road.

3. Tornado that hit west of town and woke up my college roommate and me. Snapped off the tops of pine trees all over town. Hit at the trailer park where my boyfriend's dad had just bought a used mobile home. The dog next door disappeared. "Our" mobile home just got a big dent.

4. Leaving tornado-prone Gainesville, Florida, there was the huge tornado we watched come toward us in Champaign, Illinois, since we worked near the top of the tallest building in town. We had to FORCE the business owner to go to the basement, away from his email. We told him we needed our jobs.

5. Then we moved to Texas. Tornadoes hit Jarrell Texas in 1997, then waltzed across the countryside, scaring the pee out of the dudes building my house, who had a very clear view, then hit Cedar Park, Texas, including the neighborhood of one of my new friends. The radio said it was coming straight at us. I had a 3 and 6 year old and was living on the third floor of an apartment building. We had NOWHERE to hide. This traumatized Beccano for life.

6. Last month the poor boy and unwittingly I drove home into a tornado warning. Ran inside to hide in the laundry room. He fell apart.

And I have left out a few other close calls.