(Note that this entry has been a work in progress since Friday night)
Well.... it's a freakin winter wonderland outside. But wait... what's that I hear? Thunder.... it is thunder,  accompanied by lightening. In February????

That's right, it is thundering, lightening, sleeting, raining, slushing, yep it looks like someone poured a Piná Colada Slurpee on the deck outside as I type. It's a full fledged slush thunder storm or Slunderstorm©. It was 82° two days ago. I have lived here for forty-eight years and I guess I will never get acclimated.

Rain water pouring over the edges of the gutters along the side of the house and down the long icicles forming on the underside while the thunder rolls and the lightening flashes. Next thing you know Garth Brooks will show up to tell me how Shameless I am for not cleaning my gutters. I know.... I know, i brought it all on myself. And it is going to happen Every time It Rains.

They say that Oklahoma wasn't always like this before the whole Global Warming thing. Back in the day... say 60 years ago... during a little thing called the Dust Bowl we were dry and hot and arid. (No that's what they needed back then... some deodorant to cut down on some of the "working our asses off in the heat" stank that permeated pre-Global Warming Oklahoma.)

And yes. I can talk about it because the Warrens were right here spitting mud like a bunch of other Okies. That's my dad, Gene Farrell Warren, in the white shirt standing in front of my grandpa, Albert Lee Warren. The older guy holding my uncle Doyle is my great-grandpa, Albert Franklin Warren. And that hot number in the middle with all the flesh showing is my great-great-grandma, Barbara Ellen Warren. This photo was taken in the mid to late thirties in northern Oklahoma around Tonkawa and Ponca City. That car in the back is the one they loaded up in and moved to Los Angeles. My grandpa eventually got a job at Lockheed building fighters during the war. Then after the war they moved back to Oklahoma and we never left again... except that two weeks we moved back to LA in the late sixtys but I already told you that story.

Now we have entire Summers and Falls disrupted by flooding, thunder storms in February and did I mention that it is 32° and there are birds singing in the ice encrusted Honeysuckle. I would get a picture of the icicles on their little beaks but that would require that I actually step out from under the protection of the porch and into the midst of the Slunderstorm©. Not going to happen, you will need to use your imagination. Come on... their birds in a bush.... concentrate.

The climatologists can call it Global Warming all they want.... we call it the great wetting.

In the thirties the people of California didn't really want a bunch of Okies sucking up all their clean, ocean filtered air and parking our rusted worn out, mattress topped cars and trucks along their scenic roadways. We got the message and most all of us came back to Oklahoma and turned it back into the land of the beautiful sunrise and sunset. Oh.... and living here, you don't have to actually suck the air into your lungs, it just kinda floats in there all on its own like God intended. 

You know for a fact that the smog, nut job celebrities and that, "entire cities falling into the ocean during the big one" will eventually drive you to thoughts of moving to Oklahoma. Give me a call and I will let you in on the finer points of tying a mattress to the top of your car. Oops... You have a convertible??? Looks like you'll be sleeping in a box when you get here. That's what you get for not thinking ahead.

But we will welcome you because that's the kind of people we are, we smile and welcome everyone. Heck we even have jobs for you. The state legislature recently acted a bit hastily when they opened season on illegals and effectively exiled every manual laborer in the entire state back to their home country of Texas. Even legal Latinos are afraid to travel through Oklahoma. We Okies have a crap load of jobs you can just step right into. Bring us your gardeners, cotton pickers, cotton pullers, lawn mowers, sod installers, housekeepers, maids and any other job title that includes sweating and touching other peoples ookkie stuff. When will those bureaucrats understand that hungry legals don't even want those jobs, that's why we hired the illegals in the first place. Legals want to start at $65,000 a year with a benefit package and car allowance after almost not quite but almost, completing that grueling twelve year state sponsored education which they didn't even bother attending most days. Let the people work that want to work. Why the heck do you guys make things so difficult?

Ohhhhh.... its a real job you want. Sorry those are reserved for only those that can say "y'all" and make it sound believable, oh... and those  that smile at strangers on the street, just because you're happy to live in such a nice place.

So, on behalf of all Okies who have been on the other end, BRING ON THE GLOBAL WARMING it seems to be working out for us this time around. As for the rest of you, buck up it shouldn't last forever and we will be more than happy to sell you water.