It's Lynn, Not Leanne... and I'm Not Becoming A Storm Chaser

So, y'all know I've been working in Alabama for the last week or so. This is my second week here, but I've been traveling back and forth. Let me tell ya, it's a long trip.
Yesterday we had a meeting that was a continuation of one from the week before. We were determining the individuals who needed to be invited to our upcoming sessions and I was recording all the names. The room we were in was really big which made it difficult to hear everyone. Along with the fact that I couldn't hear very well, I was trying to decipher names through the thick Alabama accents. I had to keep asking everyone to spell the names for me... I think they think I'm special. Toward the end of the meeting someone yelled out a particular name and I wrote it down as Leanne. About five minutes later someone pointed out that I had spelled the name incorrectly... It should have been Lynn, not Leanne. See pronunciation: Le-inn. We all started cracking up and they informed me that everyone in the South adds an extra syllable to everything. I'm telling y'all, I'm coming home with an accent!

I dropped a coworker off at the airport today and had to drive to and from through some torrential downpours. It seems to torrentially downpour a lot down here. As I'm driving back the Emergency Broadcast System came over the radio to issue a tornado warning for blah-de-blah county. I started to panic a little because I have no idea what county I'm in.The warning on the radio continued on and said, "In the event of a tornado, the safest place to be is in a basement... if you can't get to a basement, get to the most central point of a building... if you're in your car, evacuate immediately and get into a building... if there are no buildings around, evacuate your car and lie in a ditch." Apparently the ditch thing is common knowledge (Auri & Noelle both knew about this... I had no clue.)

So I had visions of me pulling off the side of the freeway, running frantically through a field and finding a ditch to lie down in while waiting for the possible tornado to pass.

That is, because, I didn't know if I was in any danger at all. I figured everyone else was still in their cars driving down the road, so I should be ok.I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but I'm extremely terrified of high winds. And the thought of experiencing a tornado or a hurricane scares the absolute hell out of me.

So yeah... If you're driving through Montgomery and see some weird woman lying in a ditch and rocking in the fetal position, that's probably me ... and I probably need your help.

I'm sure I'll be back with more Alabama news tomorrow. Is there anything y'all want to know about this neck of the woods? Let me know!

This is why hurricanes are bad... they're started by evil little vengeful butterflies...