popOmatic

In case you haven’t already heard about 2012, it’s the year that the Mayan calendar ends, which is supposedly going to coincide with the end of the world. 2012 is also the title of a new disaster movie arriving in theaters next month and I can’t wait to see that! I’m a huge disaster flick fan and will never tire of special effects-laden movies that depict the planets’ most recognizable structures getting blown up.

As much as I enjoy watching the shit hit the fan on screen, I don’t care much for disasters in my own backyard and last night, we saw several Hollywood style scenes unfold on the home front. The day started with insane rain that lasted for 20 minutes and was then gone. The sun came out and the makings for a lovely fall day were on hand. Then the wind started.

BeachWood, the name of our little home and acreage, is situated on the side of a hill at an elevation of 1000 feet above sea level. To put that in perspective for the topographically challenged, our house is as high in the sky as the observation deck of the Empire State Building. We are also surrounded by hills and mountains so weather is unpredictable and sometimes severe.

Yesterdays’ winds were casual at first. I wouldn’t want to go sailing in them but didn’t expect to see any cows flying past the window. As the day went on the winds picked up until they started grabbing tree limbs and flinging them at the house. This bombardment went on until the wind found something more mischievous to attack – our screened and tented backyard gazebo! The gazebo was plucked from its perch and flung into the trees. After doing everything I could to keep the gazebo from taking off, I headed back inside for a stiff drink. That’s when we saw the lights in the sky!

BeachWood is surrounded by woods (hence part of the name) and the mysterious lights were coming from the thickest area of trees. At first I thought it might be coming from a hill way off in the distance but there is no way we would be able to see that hill through the woods. So I jumped to the most obvious conclusion – a U.F.O. was landing in our woods! We headed outside to great our alien trespassers and were overcome by the wonderful, fall-like scent of burning leaves. That’s when we realized that the lights were sparks and flames coming from the power lines that run through the woods and connect to our house. It turns out that a tree limb was lying across the lines and slowly burning, shooting off sparks and fireworks. This would have been a great show if it wasn’t all happening in the woods that come right up to our house. Luckily that crazy rain from earlier in the day had soaked everything so the sparks weren’t igniting all the fallen leaves on the ground and in the trees.

We called the electric company emergency people and watched the show in the woods while we waited for help to arrive. Eventually, the tree limb burnt through and the whole thing came crashing down in a huge display of sparks. Again, very pretty but way too close to home. We trudged out into the woods to gather up the smoldering limb and finally headed back inside for another drink and to get back to worrying about the gazebo blowing away.