The Hot and Cold of It

So, this storm we've got now, is crazy.

On our way back into the house after dinner and movies with bro at the hospital last night, E and I looked up at the orange-grey sky, listened to the hissing and howling wind, and locked eyes before quickly hustling inside. The primal instinct for shelter is strong, even out here in Northern California, where if you live too long, you'll be soft (or so the saying goes).

Last night, our heater did its job. Loudly. Intermittently. But it kept us warm and we felt grateful.

This morning, despite the muffled sounds of the gas flame going on and off and the fan pushing the wonderful hot air through our ducts, I woke before my alarm to the crashing sound of the extremely strong pounding rain. And after examining the alarm clock, I admitted that I should just rise, because the extra 30 minutes trying to go back to sleep would do me no good.

So, I sat in traffic on the freeway in rain that was harder than rain I'd seen in a long time, and in October no less.

E informed me that our laundry-room flooded. He had to climb to the roof and unplug the downspout in the pouring (seriously, like a pitcher) rain. Thankfully, it worked.

Finally, this afternoon, it calmed.

And Northern California, as a whole, is probably better off than it would be had the storm not come. Yes, there were floods, and deaths, and destruction. But water is a source of life, and we were quite low on it up here...

To celebrate, I made salsa verde (because I am a canning maniac...):



Also, in case you were wondering, you can buy 2 lbs of tomatillos at Safeway for $2/lb. Or, you could do what we did this year and grow 0.5 lbs of tomatillos and aunt molly's husk tomatoes including 4 months of work and fertilizer and automatic watering and staking. Yeah... there will be no husk tomatoes in our garden next year. The salsa verde was delicious, but it was 80% purchased tomatillos.

Not to mention, despite the cold outside, the heat of the boiled sauce exploded through the top of our non-air/liquid-tight blender and scalded my left hand. Not a little bit, to be honest. It still hurts an hour later, it's still red, I iced, and I've got it in a towel dipped in cold water but it still feels hot...so, now I've got a constant throbbing heat to contrast with the cold of the storm outside...



In short. We are living with many different temperatures these days. Heat of burns and boiling and canning. Cold of rain and the hail I heard hit my office today. Crazy October weather -- sometimes, Indian Summer, and sometimes, this...

Our lives are not our own...