Tornadoes and Woodchucks

This weekend was Andrea's first tornado warning. A tornado warning means that a tornado has been sighted somewhere in your county. Sometimes close, sometimes quite far away. In this case, the tornado was quite far away, and it wasn't really even that stormy in Newton. I was actually walking home from the movie store when the siren went off, and the voice calmly shouted "Tornado... Warning... Take... Shelter... Immediately."

Everyone of course ran outside to see the tornado, but they were all disappointed.

This is what it looked like outside our sun room window. Except without the tornado.

I was about a half mile away from home, and I had to decide if I was going to run or not. On one hand, running would make me look like a moron. On the other hand, I knew that Andrea had never experienced a real tornado warning before and I wasn't sure if it would scare her or not. So I tried to run casually, like I just happened to be out for a jog in jeans and a flannel shirt. I believe most people were fooled.

Andrea was fine, and had already taken some blankets, a flashlight, and her visa documents to the basement. We hung out down there until they sounded the "All Clear" siren.

The next day, we awoke to see a woodchuck in our garden shed. Neither of us had ever seen a woodchuck before. This is what it looked like:

***insert woodchuck joke***