I woke to the fast moving memory of a tornado at 4:40 AM. Tornado dreams do not bother me as they once did. I have weathered enough of them to know, for me, they denote rapidly approaching, but generally short-lived trouble.
The event that woke me at 4:40 AM was the weather radio sounding an alarm for a tornado watch. It took me a minute to puzzle out how the good folks at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association knew what I had been dreaming. Not a good sign.
A strong gust of wind smacked the house as I flopped back down on the mattress. Mediation planned all morning with X, a fools errand initiated by me to seek compromise on the upcoming holiday visitation schedule. Flexibility is not a hallmark of X.
Like many, I find tornadoes compelling. Borne of instability, they oftentimes defy prediction. Fastest winds on earth, here and gone, death and damage by happenstance. One house standing, one house vanished. This past summer, a tornado warning found me tucking my children in the closet under our stairs. Once they were safe, I patrolled my back deck, hoping to spot the trace of a funnel dropping from clouds backlit by lightening at 2:00 AM.
But today, there was no tornado, at least not in the sky. Mediation failed. For me and my children, this year will end out as unstable as it began. The Expensive Lawyer has recommended I cease these communicative efforts given X’s sadistic delight, as she puts it, in pursuing control when approached in good faith.
The wind cut electricity to my house during the day, incapacitating my one good computer. Energy, time, many words lost. Reboot in safe start-up mode, wish it worked for humans too.
I dropped my children off at X’s house earlier this evening. As I left the subdivision, there was Constant Street, toppled. Wind sheared the street sign off at the base. A bad sign.
High wind warning for several more days. Even windy people get blown away.
Shouldn't...but Do 
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