We all took the stairs which lead to the main hall and the Great room only to see a hell of a mess...
A tree limb of the large variety had been ripped off one of the trees just beyond the rear deck. There is a stand of these big old oaks there and along the south side of the house and elswhere on the property and they are huge and beautiful.
The Great Room sits at the rear of the house nearly dead center, and the entire back wall, part of which is two story is glass. French- paned doors and then humongous french-paned windows. That tree limb which had become an air-borne missile due to the strength of the winds from the storm, proved to be more than a match for the window it came barreling through. Fortunately nobody was near any of the windows, but the glass as it shattered went flying at a pretty good clip it appeared, and some of the gathered had gotten hit by the pieces.
Both of the Catalafano twins, Derek, Marty, Bo, Chance, and Frankie, while the others were either too far away or in the kitchen helping Billy Ray with dinner. Elke was running to get first aid kits and Rose, Ofelia, Rico and I started to assess the damage. As I surveyed the scene, I instantly knew we had to do something about the window and the big limb now dangling in it.
Fortunately the wounds were all pretty minor and for that I was grateful, because it would not be easy I know to get an ambulance out here in this storm.
Rico got up in my ear and whispered,
"Honey, what we gonna do about that window?"
With several panes of glass gone, water was coming in at a raucous clip borne on very gusty winds. So good for white carpeting of course.
Antonio to the rescue.
"Bear, you got several rolls of that heavy plastic out in the garage. Let's get that. Heavy tape should do it," and we let the former crime boss in charge of fast solutions lead the way out to the garage. He and Rico and I, Mitch, and Derek got all the materials and tools and went to work getting the hole closed off.
While all this was going on, Billy Ray had gotten dinner done and was announcing that unless we felt like starving to death...come and get it.
So pretty soon there we were in attack mode, with everyone gathered around the buffet table and starting to fill plates.
Jumbo Shrimp, Tenderloins, Roast Turkey, salads, vegetables, taters, breads, salads...as usual it was a Foxworth extravaganza...
and we made the usual oinkers out of ourselves.
BELT LOOPS BE DAMNED. Burp. We are usually a pretty noisy bunch until our pig natures kick in, but tonight the noise from the storm made conversation a bit difficult unless you were in someone's lap, which I was (GRIN).
I needed to be, sad to say.
"This is great Billy. So good Bill. Scrumptious, Bang up job...and the compliments came a'flying amidst the belt loops popping and the burps a burping...and then it all stopped rather abruptly as the phone rang, shattering the otherwise quiet moment. Rico and I looked at each other, sensing...
something.
He got up and headed for it...and what we had not a clue.
No comments:
Post a Comment