Oh hail.

Last night was a wild ride. We knew storms were coming, just not sure when. Dante and I cut a walk short because it started raining, and don't you know as soon as we stepped inside the house the sun came out. The weather yesterday afternoon was so calm and pleasant that I was lulled into a false sense of security, basking in the balminess of having all the windows and doors open. Kearney tried to eat a shrew. You know, the usual at the Peacock house. Little did I know I'd hear tornado sirens twice before the night was over.

Around 5:30, I set out to Ridgeland for a meeting at one of my clients' offices. The lightning on the Natchez Trace was spectacular, and before long I realized the hair on my arms and the back of my neck was standing on edge from the charge. Once I entered Ridgeland, I heard my first set of sirens for the night but figured I'd be safe in the brick walls of our meeting place. Remembering the tennis-ball-sized hailstorm in Jackson in the early 1990s, all I could think about was that I bet Nissan's hail cannons will finally have a good test run. You know you're getting old and cynical when your biggest worry during a storm is that your car will be dented by hail.

The meeting adjourned, and I drove home safe and sound. It didn't even rain on me, so I pulled into the garage, had supper with Mike, and went to bed thinking it had passed.

Movie-worthy thunder and lightning woke us up around 11 last night. We had watched The Skeleton Key last weekend, so we had a good time joking around about the spookiness of it all. Kearney and Dante were edgy. We cuddled up and tried to sleep when I heard twigs and small limbs hitting the roof. Remembering the limb from July, I said a little prayer that the whole tree didn't decide to follow suit. After a few minutes, I realized that was an awful lot of twigs to hit the roof.

OH HAIL.

I sat bolt upright in bed and exclaimed, "Oh Mike, your car!" Of course he had already figured it out, so he was resigned to having a pocked vehicle. Poor guy. I laid back down and commented, "You know, in the year and a half we've lived here, I've never heard the tornado sirens. I bet we can't hear them because of the retaining wall."

Not two seconds later, we were almost knocked out of bed by the sirens. Turns out, yeah, you can hear them. Even with the retaining wall.

So all four of us went to the living room to find out what Barbie Basset had to say. It's times like these I really miss Woody Assaf. He always had a great time during storms. Dante was thisclose to us all night long, and when Mike swung his legs out of bed this morning, he stepped on the poor pup, who was all huddled up as close to the bed as he could be.

The hail was officially classified as golf ball sized, but a few pieces seemed bigger than that. I'm very surprised the dining room window didn't break, as it sounded like some guy was throwing rocks directly at it. Short story long, we didn't have any damage; just some debris and mud on the sidewalk. Mike's car even came out unscathed according to my inspection this morning. If the engineer does find a couple of dents, I have no doubt they can be vacuumed out.

During our walk this beautiful morning, I smelled mud and crawfish.

Photos courtesy of the National Weather Service.

Update: when I wrote this post, it was still dark outside, and though I went out with a flashlight to look, we believed the vehicles emerged unscathed. Unfortunately, I was incorrect: in the light of day and once they dried off, Mike noted that there are dents all over both his car and the pickup. Yuck. I guess that's why God made insurance.