Habooby

I don’t want to be immature but I can’t seem to help myself.

Phoenix, Arizona was hit today with the second haboob in one month.

And, even though the word “haboob” makes me want to giggle, it’s not naughty.

Unless you own a swimming pool – if that’s the case this is a really dirty situation.

For the uninitiated, a haboob is a dust storm to an amazing degree.  I don’t know if people in Arizona should be proud or not – typically haboobs are only found in the Sahara desert.

And sometimes Texas.

The first haboob of the month hit Phoenix on July 5.  There were gusts of wind up to 69 miles per hour, which means, my Oklahoma friends, Phoenix does not win the war based on wind speed but does win the war based on pure ick.

Swimming pools all over the Phoenix valley turned into mud pits.  Which, if you’re into mud wrestling, could be a bonus but most people prefer crystal clear water for their swimming pools.

Up in my Mountain Town we did not get a haboob today.

(I’m still giggling.  Haboob.  Haboob, haboob, haboob!)

We did get a solid lightning storm with crashes of thunder so loud the poodles were quivering under my legs and the girls refused to take a nap.

In fact, I answered the business phone today seconds before there was a crack of thunder and my caller was cussing on the other end.

Turns out she had lightening hit her backyard as she was making the phone call.  The crazy thing is the phone rang, I answered, and then I heard the massive thunder over the sound of her expletives.

Funny stuff.

Lightening hit the mini storage once, about 10 years ago.  I was here, I saw it, it happened about 25 feet away from me.

The lightening hit a tree and my world exploded in noise.  I screamed at the top of my lungs, certain I was about to die, and then there was simply the absence of noise and the ringing of my ears.

Lightening didn’t hit here today, so that was a good thing.  The girls finally took a nap, which was also a good thing.

And I get to say haboob incessantly.

I’m thinking life is good.

 

Uno and the Poopy Feast

At the prompting of a friend who wanted to recall the details of Uno’s poop munching escapade, here it is, a flashback from April of 2007:

Earlier this evening I heard a person describe a certain cheese ball as “particularly offensive to all five senses.” I loved the description but, having no cheese ball at hand to identify with, began to wonder if there has been anything in mothering that I have found “offensive to all five senses.”

A little bit of thought and I remembered a story I’ve never written about before…

Lizard and I were driving home from Phoenix to Sedona with Uno when she was about 14 mos. old… She had been fussing in the back seat but I really didn’t want to stop to change what I knew was a stinky diaper.

We had been on the road for almost two hours and were about 25 minutes from home so I decided that even though the aroma wafting up toward the front of the car was nasty and she was complaining I would turn a deaf ear and just book it home before stopping to change the diaper.

Bad lapse in judgment.

We were driving along and I suddenly realized that it had gotten mighty quiet in the back seat. So, I asked Lizard to take a quick look and see what was going on. He complied and reported that she was eating. No cause for concern and a plausible reason for the silence.

Until I realized that I hadn’t given her anything to eat.

LIzard realized this at the same time that I did and took another look – then veered wildly off the road to a sudden and complete stop. I began to screech, not knowing why he would do this but that it had to do with my firstborn, lovely child! He gritted out:

“You don’t want to know. I promise, you don’t want to know!”

Well, that piqued my interest beyond all belief and I whipped around in the front seat to discover Uno covered in something… that turned out to be the contents of her dirty diaper.

She had reached her hand up into her shorts and pulled the pooh out, wiping it all over her clothes, the car seat, her face, her hair… it was everywhere. The stink was astonishing – the whole affair was truly offensive to all five senses. (Taste being the sole province of Uno, however.)

I tried to help Lizard clean her up, but three months pregnant with a sensitive stomach is not the time to try to be diplomatic and stand for equality in the messy parts of parenthood.

I was retching and hopping up and down on the side of the road – Lizard finally told me to just go away and stay away after I vomited my driving snack of Nacho Cheese Doritos all over the ground.

For the record, semi-digested Doritos are also a gruesome sight.  It was next to a cat claw bush.  Just awkward.

That experience is burned into my memory and Uno will live to regret doing such things! We’re just waiting until she’s 30 and we let her date for the first time!

The most humorous aspect of the story for me came after Lizard had cleaned everything up and we were back on the road for the 25 minutes to the house. I was quizzing him on how he had realized what was going on, etc. and asked what Uno had looked like when she was eating the pooh.

“Actually – pretty satisfied!”