So there I am, cracking geodes on Pack Square, hanging out with my coworkers, smokin' cigarettes and takin' pictures for my job, when the temperature begins to drop. We're under one of those funky little pop up carnival tents with the geodes and some of the roughly 300 signs I've spent the last week making in Illustrator (which signs have gotten progressively funkier, but that's neither here nor there.) So. It's getting colder and the wind picks up. Then, this very cool hippie lady (one of those super uber hippies who live around here, the kind who have seen everything and done everything and now are living at Earthhaven and yet have maintained a certain modicum of sanity?) comes running over to us and she says, "This tent is gonna go." And we say, "Oh, no, thank you, but we're fine." "Oh yes it is," she says firmly, grasping one of the poles, "I was at a Rainbow Gathering in Colorado one time with one of these and. . . " And just as she said that, the wind began to switch, the house to pitch, and suddenly the hinges started to unhitch.
Then the rain kicked in. I said, "If we get it in further towards the building it'll block some of the wind!" as three people, a tent and two buckets of rocks were lifted skyward. Somehow, with the help of another magical materializing guy, we got it in towards Pack Place JUST as the hail began to really hit. This is when I booked for the door and left the three of them there. Not because I'm an abject coward (although I am, and the hailstones PLUS the lightning PLUS the wind PLUS the thunder PLUS the river that was washing around our feet got to me a bit) but because I am a Photographer. Goddamnit. And I took pictures. And it was all very exciting and kind of felt like a 70s Sci Fi movie as people flocked around the windows and it was all lit up inside while outside some kind of wacked out weather apocalypse was going on and all our other coworkers came dashing up from the museum downstairs to see if we were still alive and/or to bring the tents in and we watched the one stranded volunteer near the flume wait patiently and I bummed a cigarette from a friend of mine and her little girl, pictured here, dashed in and out collecting hailstones.
High drama at work. I don't get a weekend for another seven days, so stuff like this must sustain me. Which isn't hard, since it was AWESOME. Also awesome is coming home to an empty house, putting on sweats, sitting back with a smoke and just, thank the gods, not having to talk to anyone or do anything for anyone or anything at all but just be. Right now at work I have to be nice all day to tons of people and run around and be helpful and stuff. I'm actually very good at this but it takes a toll and when I get home? I simply cannot be around homo sapiens at all, and since I don't have to right now, it's glorious. Oh, and when I got home? The deck was dry. No rain, no hail here in West Asheville, maybe five odd (very odd) miles from downtown.
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2 comments:
great pic, definitely was eventful little storm.
Those ain't hailstones, honey. Those is just big snow. Hailstones is things as big as golf balls, that leave bruises and dent cars.
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