The “Little Condo on the Prairie” dodged some tornadoes this week, and shared a lot of laughs in our families’ proximity while we await Libby’s baby — due this Friday!

TORNADO ALLEY
Oklahoma is not known as “Tornado Alley” for nothing. We’ve had two afternoons of tornado warnings (the presence of a confirmed tornado) in the short time we’ve been here this spring. Sunday, the sirens — indicating a tornado in the area — went off no less than four times in our part of town. So of course, we all stayed glued to the local news channel, which is a veteran group and does a good job of keeping everyone updated and safe.
At one point, they put a map up on the screen, with the radar picture indicating different town locations relative to the tornado. One town I didn’t recognize:
“Bobby?”, I said quizzically. “I’ve never heard of ‘Bobby’, Oklahoma.”
Libby looked at me. She said later that she thought about letting it pass, but remembering how mercilessly I had teased her for pronouncing “PurCELL” Oklahoma as “PURSE-ll”; she said, “That’s their news reporter, Dad!” They had marked the location of their storm chaser on the screen too. Of course this all went straight to Facebook …
Then for the rest of the evening, every time the weather anchor called out, “Bobby …”, the whole room would burst into laughter yet again!

WHERE’S THAT BOOK?
One of the blessings of having Josh & Libby live in my sister’s apartment right by us is that they are able to be over here over every day. We know it won’t last forever so we are enjoying the time we have. But Josh is having a time adjusting to some of Cheryl’s, (ahem) “particularities” in the house …
One morning Cheryl & I were sitting in the living room talking and she exclaimed: “Hey, my book arrangement on the bookshelf is messed up.” I knew what she was talking about, because she took particular pride in the way that one certain book leaned over on another in this one location. She got up, picked up the offending book, and held it out. I said, “That’s not mine, that must be Josh’s.” (Whew!;)
Cheryl mentioned the placement of the book to Josh when they came over the next morning, and he responded with incredulity:
“I knew you were tired of having my book on the kitchen table, and I figured you’d move it — so I moved it to the bookshelf. I thought; she won’t discern that this isn’t supposed to be here — it’s a bookshelf!”
Not Cheryl. She knew THAT book didn’t go THERE!
Sometimes a guy just can’t win!

WHOOPS …
Watching a commercial during an NBA game, I noticed the emblem of the mythical griffin on the front of the player’s sweat jacket, and the letters “Griffin” underneath the emblem. I queried the kids: “Is Griffin some kind of new fashion line or something?”
The whole room turned to me and exclaimed, “WHAT?”
Realizing suddenly that the player’s name was Blake GRIFFIN, I quickly said: “Oh wait, that’s his name … erase all that”, motioning with my hand.
Paul: “No, we don’t do that around here; we post it on Facebook.” Which he promptly did!

EAT, BABY, EAT!
Cheryl & Libby were discussing the “deterrent” that being pregnant can be for eating unhealthy things. Cheryl recalled how a very health-conscious person had once told her: “Just think: what you eat, baby eats!”
Cheryl responded in her own inimitable way: “That didn’t help me any. I just thought: ‘I’m pretty sure baby wants a Snickers!'”

NOT A MATH FAN
Our daughter Libby posted the following on Facebook this week:
“Our family is equally divided when it comes to math. Mom, Paul & I can do Michael’s math problem that he struggled with today. We handed the problem to Dad and Josh who both replied with, ‘Oh no. I can’t do this.’ Dad immediately crumpled up the paper, and Josh said, ‘There’s no way; there’s negative letters.’ Dad is now reading his Hebrew Bible.”
In case you are interested (I wouldn’t be;) here is the problem:
-x-2(-x-3)= -4-x
I had wondered if I might be able to solve the problem when I had heard them talking about it, but as Libby said, I took one look at it and crumpled the paper up and threw it behind my shoulder. I had NO idea of what to do with that jumble of figures! And yes, I instinctively then pulled my Hebrew Bible off the nearby bookshelf and began reading, “Bereshih barah Elohim v’eth ha shamayim v’eth ha eretz …”. Yeah, I know it might have been some kind of defense mechanism …