Where The Wind Comes Sweeping Down The Plain

It’s Springtime in Oklahoma, y’all! The wind! The hail! The rain and drought! On Dasher, on Prancer, on Donner and Blitzen!

There might even be one last ice storm and an earthquake for good measure. 

I wish I was joking. That’s why we’re known as…

Spring in Oklahoma is so bipolar lovely with it’s different moods, but the most wretched straight from Satan best part of Spring in Oklahoma is the allergy-inducing pollen and blooms.

The thing is, I never had allergies until I moved here nineteen years ago. I know what you’re thinking…”You’re from El Paso, Kat. What is there to be allergic to? Tumbleweeds and sand?”

Well, Smarty McSmartass, it turns out there is PLENTY to be allergic to in the desert southwest. My brother spent his entire childhood with swollen eyes and breathing through his mouth because apparently he was allergic to everything. To narrow it down, though…mulberry trees, willows, bermuda grass, and various types of pollen are actually just a few of the sneeze-inducing allergens you’ll find in my hometown and surrounding areas.

I was allergic to none of these. 

Fast forward to 2000 when I moved to Oklahoma and had three ear infections and strep throat. Now, I realize the strep throat was not caused by allergies, but the three ear infections were bonuses of what I believe to be allergic reactions to…well…Oklahoma. (I wouldn’t be the first Texan to say she was allergic to Oklahoma…haha!). I say I’m allergic to Oklahoma because I’ve never been tested to see what I’m specifically allergic to. I just know when I take allergy meds, I have a much easier time than when I don’t.

So here we are…in the middle of snot season…and as I’m driving home from work, I pass a grove of trees that look like this:

You see a grove of beautiful, blooming Bradford Pear Trees.

I see a booger forest.

It almost makes me miss this:

Especially when I go out to my car in the morning and it looks like this:

Of course, living in Oklahoma and being a claims adjuster, Spring tends to bring to mind something else.

Yes, Oklahoma is in Tornado Alley. We’ve been pretty lucky in the nearly twenty years I’ve been living here that there have not been any major tornado events like some of our neighbors have seen (Moore, Oklahoma and Joplin, Missouri to name a few!). That’s not to say we haven’t had any tornadoes recently. A few years ago, one went through my little town of Broken Arrow to the East of us and damaged several houses, but didn’t level any, thank goodness! A year and a half ago, a fairly decent sized one went through Midtown Tulsa leaving a pretty good path of destruction. They had to tear down the Whataburger right off I-44 and it hasn’t been rebuilt yet.

Let us bow our heads.

There have, of course, been smaller tornado events over the years. It isn’t uncommon for a tornado siren to wake me from a dead sleep, causing me to jump up, throw on real pants and shoes and stuff cash and jewelry in my pockets and bra while I head to the powder room under the stairs, which serves as our only “safer” place in the house. 

You’re probably asking why I stuff my pockets and bra with cash and jewelry and why I’m announcing it to the world. 

It’s because if the looters know I’m loaded down with goodies, they’re more likely to look for me and pull me out of the rubble.

Duh.

Something else I was not used to when I moved here was rain. To give you an idea, El Paso only gets about eleven inches of rain and six inches of snow per year and the sun shines 297 days out of the year. 

That’s why they call it the Sun City, y’all.

So, when I moved to Northeastern Oklahoma, which is known as “Green Country”, I got an education on a slightly more “damp” climate. 

Don’t get me wrong. It can be dry here too. Oklahoma is known for the The Dust Bowl during The Great Depression, after all. We went through a drought for several years but that all came to an end in in 2015. It felt like it rained non-stop from March until June of that year, and the annual rock festival in Pryor went something like this:

The advantage of living in a place that actually gets rain, though, are the flowers and plants we don’t really see a lot of in the desert. I’ve learned that tulips and hydrangeas are some of my favorite flowers, and when we moved into our first house, I went a little crazy with the flower beds. The conversations around the house went something like this…

Of course, my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE flower is the one flower that isn’t hardy and can’t be grown just anywhere. You really have to just go to Texas and find a field of them in the Spring and just sit and gaze on the natural beauty. I’m speaking of Bluebonnets, of course. How I miss being able to just sit in a field of those!

Aren’t they beautiful???

Before we know it, we’re going to be opening our pool and living the nightmare dream again. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go back and read about the joys of owning a pool.

The Husband Dude actually had the audacity to suggest we get this cheap ass hot tub that you can buy at Aldi:

I told him I would only allow it if we could set it up as close as possible to the backyard neighbor’s bedroom window. That way we can return the favor of them soaking in their hot tub in the middle of the night, talking very LOUDLY near our bedroom window while we are trying to sleep. 

Better yet, let’s build a raised deck to put it on that it can be seen over the fence and let’s soak completely NEKKID! I would get a cheap thrill knowing they pay HOA dues every year for the privilege of sitting in their fancy spa on their overpriced patio, and having to see my sweaty back fat taking a steam in a redneck hot tub.

YEE HAW!

Until next time…Stay weird, my friends. Normal is boring!