Where the Winds Have Names
Remember last week when I posted that it looked like it was going to be a windy day at school? Well, it was a very windy day. Windy enough for us to remember it for a long, long time.
Of course, these winds even had a name: The Santa Ana Winds. Apparently here in California the winds have names. Or rather, here in California they have distinct weather patterns that have names. At this moment I'm trying to remember any specifically-named weather patterns that I've come across in other places that I've lived, but at the moment none come to mind. Such boring, nameless weather I've experienced before living here.
But I digress. I could tell it was going to be an interesting day when I found the back door propped open to our classroom when I arrived. This was because the wind was blowing at such an angle that if you opened up the front door a even a crack, the wind caught it and slammed it full force against the side of the building. Then everything in the room would swirl around dervishly, making a complete and total mess. We were quite afraid that the force of the door could crush any small children standing by the door (waiting excitedly to please, please, please come in and start their school day), so we opted to only use the back door that day. Which completely threw the Little People off, I'll let you know. We had to call the whole day Backwards Day to allow their little minds to come to terms with coming in and out that door all day. It was like they didn't even know what to do once they even used that door. Like, "Hey.....what cool classroom is this?"
On the way to the cafeteria I was debating whether we could even go out on the playground. This was mainly because lots and lots of dust and debris were flying around. Even the tree out back was sending showers of pine needle shrapnel on us. However, after lunch it wasn't blowing the stuff around so much, so we staggered on into the playground. We didn't get out any toys - we just let the kids get blown around for about ten minutes. It was like they were the toys, really. Plus, the playground is enclosed with a fence, so the worse that could happen would be someone being trapped up against the fence a foot or two off the ground like one of those barrel/centrifuge rides at Six Flags. As it was, they loved being blown hither and yon, and we laughed about the coats and lunch boxes being blown up against the fence a foot or two off the ground like - well, you know. It was at the point where someone fell out of the bottom of the slide and her boot blew away across the playground that we decided that it was time to go inside.
From that point on we just watched the windy day from inside our room - with our hair all knotted and messy from being out in it for just a little while.
All in all, it was very memorable. As I mentioned, I don't think anyone will forget it for a long, long time. Whether they remember the name of it or not.
