Cause for Alarm

This week has been full of surprises.  Tuesday evening, I went to ladies’ night at a shooting range and got second place in our bullseye competition.  Everybody watch out.

Early the next morning, at approximately 3:00AM, I awoke to tornado sirens.  This was the first time I had heard them in person since moving to Tennessee so it took me a minute to figure out what was going on.  My weather channel alerts on my phone confirmed that we were under a tornado warning and needed to take cover immediately.  I grabbed my phone, the cats, two cushions from the sofa, and my laptop and closed us in the bathroom as I set up a little fort with my cushions in the bathtub.  I then decided I needed a flashlight and a bottle of water.  Maybe I should have thought through my tornado plan a little bit more.  In my defense, it was JANUARY(!) and tornado season doesn’t usually start until spring.

Anyway, as we waited out the very strong winds and tracked the radar on my laptop, the cats could not have been more confused/annoyed.  They kept looking at me like I was crazy and tried to dig a hole under the door to get out of the bathroom.  Apparently tornado safety does not apply to them.

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Thankfully, other than some seriously violent winds, we were alright.  There were, however, a few tornadoes within 50 miles of us that damaged several buildings and pulled roofs off of homes.

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Less than 48 hours later, the temperature had dropped nearly sixty degrees from the low seventies into the teens and it was snowing.

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It’s a beautiful, sunny day here as long as you’re indoors.  It’s a whopping 17 degrees at the moment and with the wind chill, it feels like single digits.

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There is still snow on most roofs and school was canceled, which I thought this was pretty silly, given that we got about 2 inches of snow.  New Englanders wouldn’t bat an eye at that kind of snowfall.  But then I discovered that there was still some dangerous ice lurking around as I tried to speed out of the gate at my apartment complex earlier this morning.  I spun in place for about 10 seconds until my Jeep finally slid forward, narrowly avoiding the gates as they began to close.

Like the weather, my garbage disposal has been acting backwards this week.  The other day, as I ran the water and turned on the disposal, instead of the water easing the food down the drain as the disposal ground it up, all of the food and water spun violently up and out of the drain and onto me and the counter.  The maintenance man just found a metal spear approximately the size of a chopstick jammed in the pipes, courtesy of the previous tenant.

It’s been a strange couple of days.

In other (likely related) news, I’m back to drinking coffee, but just a small cup.  Hopefully, things will now return to normal.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump

Shooting Range

I’m really getting into this recreational shooting thing.  The other day, I went to an indoor shooting range where we shot 9mm handguns.  The guy told me which particular type of gun I was shooting, but I promptly forgot because I don’t know anything about guns except that they are fun to shoot (safely).

I did, however, remember what I learned in class before we went out to the range:

1) Always keep the gun pointed towards the target in the range (and away from living beings).

2) Don’t load the gun until you’re ready to shoot.

3) Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.

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Once we got out into the range, we had to select a target.  We had our choice of pink or blue.  Naturally, I chose hot pink to make up for my tomboy years in middle school when I shopped exclusively in the boys’ department at the GAP and refused to acknowledge that pink existed.  The man running the place said the pink was actually easier to see.  I think he just wanted to see a bunch of guys shooting at hot pink targets.

I had never shot a handgun before so I needed a lot of prep on what the heck I was doing.  I finally got the gist of it but the gun kept jamming because I didn’t keep a firm enough grip on it after I pulled the trigger.  Towards the end, I had a death grip on that gun.  I was holding it so tight that my ring made a serious impression in my finger.

The hardest part was not wobbling with my breath.  Thank goodness I wasn’t hopped up on caffeine or I would have had no hope for hitting the target.

Turns out, I hit the target pretty well for a newbie.  I never got the X, but I got pretty darn close 49 times.

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I was so proud that I hung my target on the refrigerator.  Even grown-ups can display their accomplishments on the fridge.  I can’t wait to see the look on the cable guy’s face tomorrow when he comes to fix my cable (that has been broken since NEW YEAR’s EVE!).

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I was pretty pleased with myself.

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A few more rounds and I would have blown this guy’s (girl’s?) heart to smithereens.

I’m glad I tried the handgun indoors thing, but I think I prefer rifles.  I like being outside and having more distant targets.   Too bad I live in an apartment complex with 0 yard.   I need to make a trip back to Kentucky to go shoot on the farm.

Now, on to my next task with the slightly more difficult moving target: skeet shooting.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump