Interesting day. Got up early and went into Milan. Test drove a Jeep Liberty ( earned one cd)...liked it, though Dan keeps saying he thinks they are too small. I thought it was great to be able to get in and out of parking spots in my test drive without having to worry about a huge rear end sticking out like in my car...

The Dodge/Jeep/Chrysler dealer in Milan is actually a nice place. No salespeople on staff. It is a third generation business, currently owned by the grandson of the founder, with his elderly father helping out. I didn't know that businesses like that still existed in Southeastern Michigan.

Next I headed into Ann Arbor to go to the doctor's office. I got there to find out that the lab closes for nearly two hours in the middle of the day every day so the employees can eat lunch. Of course, no one mentioned that to me on the phone yesterday ("Sure you can come in tomorrow! You don't need an appointment! Just come in anytime and go back to the lab!")...so I went out for lunch at a nearby Olive Garden, where I greatly enjoyed soup, salad, and breadsticks. Dan met me there to hear about my test drive (he knows how much I hate the entire process). While we were eating it got cloudier and cloudier outside. After eating, I went back to the doctor's office and had my blood drawn. It was starting to look pretty threatening out. I turned on the radio to the local jazz station in time to hear sirens. A severe thunderstorm warning for Washtenaw County had just been declared -- the storm was out in Chelsea and heading for Saline -- just like the ones last night.

So I raced home. By the time I got to the intersection of Moon and Michigan, the sky was unreal. There was a rapidly advancing line of horrifying darkness, all roiled and hideous...raced even faster. Then the wind caught me at Moon and Willis. It was whipping about the trees, and so many leaves and small branches were coming down it was very hard to see to drive. As I pulled into our driveway and got out of the car the hail started. As soon as I ran into the house the power died. All you could hear was the drumming of the hail onto the house, and the roaring of the wind. That dark sky was overhead...I was sure there would be a tornado...and the kids were due to get out of school in just a few minutes...

So of course, you worry. Will the schools have the sense to keep the kids inside? They won't really have them walk home/get on the busses in this, will they? And then, when so much time goes by after the normal arrival time, and there is no sign of the bus, you worry about that...but the storm receded, and the children got home about half an hour late, merrily scooping up handfuls of hail, all happy because it is Friday...in Milan the sirens had gone off, and there had been a tornado warning, so they kept the children late at school, until they could safely walk home/get on the busses...and the power just came back up, about six hours later...so all is well, though we lost a lot of big branches from the trees, and most of my flowers have been stripped of their petals...at one point it looked like it had been snowing because of all of the hail on the ground...