Howling Winds

Poor Sugar. She paces at the foot of my bed, shaking and whimpering. The wind outside is howling like a banshee. When Sugar first woke me up, I thought I was hearing a freight train. Sometimes when the air is humid I can hear the trains from my bedroom. But generally train sounds grow louder, then fades away and stops. This sound was just loud and there was no fading. Maybe it was one of those Air Force heavy transport helicopters?

In the grayness of predawn, I pulled aside the curtain and gazed out. The trees were dancing with St. Vitus, branches bounding and tossing. I could glimpse odds and ends of paper and stuff tumbling down the drive, flopping about wildly. This is a March wind at it best, but in mid January! How does that happen?

I pull Sugar close and stroke her trembling side. She settles down, but keeps glancing nervously around as if she were expecting the roof to collapse. Drew slept right through the whole thing. I fell back into a fitful sleep, dreaming of flying kites on the ocean beach and trying to run into the wind only to be dragged back. Somehow the Wizard of Oz and news scenes of hurricanes got mixed into the surreality of it all.

What a crazy night! What a crazy winter!