Timber!
A tree fell on our house today.
No one was hurt.
And we don’t have a new skylight or anything.
It’s dark, so I can’t really tell what the structural damage is.
Yet.
I wasn’t even home when it happened. I was at work.
We had that weird cold front with the gusting winds come through today. We had been experiencing unusually balmy weather for this time of year. When I left for work this morning, it was 67 degrees. When I got home this evening, it was about 37 degrees.
At about 11 this morning, there was a torrential downpour with horrendous winds. When I peered outside, it looked like God had turned the entire world into one giant car wash. You know, the kind where you stay inside your car and ride on through the high-pressured, sudsy wash, wax, and dry while your car is pulled along by some motorized chain thing.
There were wind gusts of up to about 60 miles per hour. Scary just to think about, if you ask me.
The house I live in is 180 years old. It was built in 1826. It is one hundred years older than my mother. It is…, for lack of a better word, … OLD.
The house is on the side of a hill; it is surrounded by trees. Some of those trees are very big. And very old, too. One of them has a huge branch with a giant split in it; several years ago this tree was hit by lightning. The wind whistles through the split in the branch in a very ominous manner, even during the best of times.
Normal winds tend to bring down twigs and branches in a rather pell mell fashion around the house all the time.
I was kind of worried what 60 mph winds might do.
At about 4:00, my older son called me at work to tell me that the power had just gone out. That did not surprise me. I could hear the wind howling in the background as my son was talking to me. That DID surprise me. He was indoors.
About an hour later, my younger son called. One of his friends was inviting him over to spend the night. Oh, and by the way, a tree had fallen on the house.
WHAT?!!??!!
“Yeah. It was a big tree. We thought it was an earthquake when it hit.”
WHAT!!!!????
Did it come into the house?????
No.
Where did it hit????
On the left side of the house.
What does THAT mean???? On the side that the backyard is? (I was envisioning several potential large backyard trees.)
No. A different side.
OK. A house tends to have FOUR sides. Which side exactly did the tree fall on?
The back.
Did it come through a window? The ceiling? A wall?
No.
Well, can you tell me more about it? How big was the tree?
“Look, I need to call my friend back to tell him if I can spend the night or not. You’ll have to ask Grandma all these questions about the tree.”
Was it a BIG tree….????
Yes, it was a big tree.
Like the one in the front yard? (Which is a giant maple tree that must be well over a hundred years old.)
No. Not THAT big.
OK.
Now I am starting to think to myself: SURELY it cannot have possibly been that bad, or my mother would have called me at work. Right?
I mean, the woman calls me at work all the time. To tell me things like: she has mailed a bill for me. Or she wants to know if we should have corn or green beans with dinner. Surely, if a TREE had fallen on the HOUSE, wouldn’t she have called me????????
The answer to that would be…..
NO.
As I was leaving work, I called home to see if the power was back on yet.
It was. I got my mother on the phone when I called.
She reminded me that she was going out to dinner with friends. She said the wind was blowing really, really hard, and I should be careful when I drove home. And that the power had been off. But now, thankfully, it was back on.
Oh.
And there had been a sort of …………… “disaster” earlier in the afternoon.
What sort of “disaster”? I asked.
Oh, nothing big. A tree fell on the house.
HOLY SHIT!!!
A tree had fallen on the house and THAT entered conversation AFTER the reminder she was going out to dinner???? AFTER she told me it was really windy outside???? AFTER she told me my son’s friend’s parents had just come to pick him up for a sleepover????
Meanwhile, I am envisioning a huge, gaping hole in the roof of the house.
No, she said. She couldn’t really tell what damage it had done. All she knew was that there was a tree down behind the house and branches and debris were all over the place, to include on the roof.
She wanted to know if I thought she should wear her black raincoat, or something warmer.
CHRIST!!!
A fucking tree had fallen on the house. And all these people could think about was sleepovers and what coat to wear?????
When I got home, I grabbed my older son, and the two of us trooped out into the backyard and behind the house. I was carrying a lantern. It was still windy. And pitch dark. We found the tree trunk, sure enough. And there were branches and shattered wood bits all over the place. It was then that my son noticed there were bricks all over the place, too.
Where had THEY come from????
From the roof? he suggested.
No. There are no bricks on the roof, I said.
Then it dawned on me: the chimney. The tree must have fallen onto one of the chimneys. We walked around to the other side of the house to get a better view. There are four chimneys on the house. None of the fireplaces are working anymore, but they are still there, along with their chimneys. The chimneys are made of brick, and there is a brick arch over the top of them, I suppose to keep out the elements. I looked at the one nearest to where the tree had hit. The arch was completely missing.
Hello.
I daresay the felled tree took out the entire top of the chimney.
I informed my mother, who was still applying her makeup and fixing her hair, that the tree appeared to have taken out a chimney.
OH. She nodded, smacking her lipstick-clad lips onto a Kleenex to remove the excess lipstick. That makes sense, she said. When the tree hit, it sounded like the entire house was falling down.
Oh, sure, NOW she tells me!
The boys thought it was an earthquake, she added matter-of-factly, this woman for whom NOTHING is matter-of-fact.
Well, that is because they have LIVED through earthquakes, I said. When we lived up in Alaska, earthquakes were not an uncommon experience.
Earthquakes here would be… weird.
But not trees falling on your house, apparently!
That didn’t seem to elicit much response or reaction at all!!!!
Small, teeny, totally inconsequential matters seem to take on great portent, while huge, fucking trees falling on one’s house, “like an earthquake,” are hardly worth mentioning.
Yes, clearly, I live in INSANO town with the insano family.
No one was hurt, though. And there IS still a roof over our heads.
So… in the grand scheme of things, I guess it is: "Ten bells, and all is well!"
No one was hurt.
And we don’t have a new skylight or anything.
It’s dark, so I can’t really tell what the structural damage is.
Yet.
I wasn’t even home when it happened. I was at work.
We had that weird cold front with the gusting winds come through today. We had been experiencing unusually balmy weather for this time of year. When I left for work this morning, it was 67 degrees. When I got home this evening, it was about 37 degrees.
At about 11 this morning, there was a torrential downpour with horrendous winds. When I peered outside, it looked like God had turned the entire world into one giant car wash. You know, the kind where you stay inside your car and ride on through the high-pressured, sudsy wash, wax, and dry while your car is pulled along by some motorized chain thing.
There were wind gusts of up to about 60 miles per hour. Scary just to think about, if you ask me.
The house I live in is 180 years old. It was built in 1826. It is one hundred years older than my mother. It is…, for lack of a better word, … OLD.
The house is on the side of a hill; it is surrounded by trees. Some of those trees are very big. And very old, too. One of them has a huge branch with a giant split in it; several years ago this tree was hit by lightning. The wind whistles through the split in the branch in a very ominous manner, even during the best of times.
Normal winds tend to bring down twigs and branches in a rather pell mell fashion around the house all the time.
I was kind of worried what 60 mph winds might do.
At about 4:00, my older son called me at work to tell me that the power had just gone out. That did not surprise me. I could hear the wind howling in the background as my son was talking to me. That DID surprise me. He was indoors.
About an hour later, my younger son called. One of his friends was inviting him over to spend the night. Oh, and by the way, a tree had fallen on the house.
WHAT?!!??!!
“Yeah. It was a big tree. We thought it was an earthquake when it hit.”
WHAT!!!!????
Did it come into the house?????
No.
Where did it hit????
On the left side of the house.
What does THAT mean???? On the side that the backyard is? (I was envisioning several potential large backyard trees.)
No. A different side.
OK. A house tends to have FOUR sides. Which side exactly did the tree fall on?
The back.
Did it come through a window? The ceiling? A wall?
No.
Well, can you tell me more about it? How big was the tree?
“Look, I need to call my friend back to tell him if I can spend the night or not. You’ll have to ask Grandma all these questions about the tree.”
Was it a BIG tree….????
Yes, it was a big tree.
Like the one in the front yard? (Which is a giant maple tree that must be well over a hundred years old.)
No. Not THAT big.
OK.
Now I am starting to think to myself: SURELY it cannot have possibly been that bad, or my mother would have called me at work. Right?
I mean, the woman calls me at work all the time. To tell me things like: she has mailed a bill for me. Or she wants to know if we should have corn or green beans with dinner. Surely, if a TREE had fallen on the HOUSE, wouldn’t she have called me????????
The answer to that would be…..
NO.
As I was leaving work, I called home to see if the power was back on yet.
It was. I got my mother on the phone when I called.
She reminded me that she was going out to dinner with friends. She said the wind was blowing really, really hard, and I should be careful when I drove home. And that the power had been off. But now, thankfully, it was back on.
Oh.
And there had been a sort of …………… “disaster” earlier in the afternoon.
What sort of “disaster”? I asked.
Oh, nothing big. A tree fell on the house.
HOLY SHIT!!!
A tree had fallen on the house and THAT entered conversation AFTER the reminder she was going out to dinner???? AFTER she told me it was really windy outside???? AFTER she told me my son’s friend’s parents had just come to pick him up for a sleepover????
Meanwhile, I am envisioning a huge, gaping hole in the roof of the house.
No, she said. She couldn’t really tell what damage it had done. All she knew was that there was a tree down behind the house and branches and debris were all over the place, to include on the roof.
She wanted to know if I thought she should wear her black raincoat, or something warmer.
CHRIST!!!
A fucking tree had fallen on the house. And all these people could think about was sleepovers and what coat to wear?????
When I got home, I grabbed my older son, and the two of us trooped out into the backyard and behind the house. I was carrying a lantern. It was still windy. And pitch dark. We found the tree trunk, sure enough. And there were branches and shattered wood bits all over the place. It was then that my son noticed there were bricks all over the place, too.
Where had THEY come from????
From the roof? he suggested.
No. There are no bricks on the roof, I said.
Then it dawned on me: the chimney. The tree must have fallen onto one of the chimneys. We walked around to the other side of the house to get a better view. There are four chimneys on the house. None of the fireplaces are working anymore, but they are still there, along with their chimneys. The chimneys are made of brick, and there is a brick arch over the top of them, I suppose to keep out the elements. I looked at the one nearest to where the tree had hit. The arch was completely missing.
Hello.
I daresay the felled tree took out the entire top of the chimney.
I informed my mother, who was still applying her makeup and fixing her hair, that the tree appeared to have taken out a chimney.
OH. She nodded, smacking her lipstick-clad lips onto a Kleenex to remove the excess lipstick. That makes sense, she said. When the tree hit, it sounded like the entire house was falling down.
Oh, sure, NOW she tells me!
The boys thought it was an earthquake, she added matter-of-factly, this woman for whom NOTHING is matter-of-fact.
Well, that is because they have LIVED through earthquakes, I said. When we lived up in Alaska, earthquakes were not an uncommon experience.
Earthquakes here would be… weird.
But not trees falling on your house, apparently!
That didn’t seem to elicit much response or reaction at all!!!!
Small, teeny, totally inconsequential matters seem to take on great portent, while huge, fucking trees falling on one’s house, “like an earthquake,” are hardly worth mentioning.
Yes, clearly, I live in INSANO town with the insano family.
No one was hurt, though. And there IS still a roof over our heads.
So… in the grand scheme of things, I guess it is: "Ten bells, and all is well!"
posted by delta at 10:22 PM
2 Comments:
What coat did she decide to wear?
You know, EVERYONE asks me that!
The black raincoat.
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