One of my favorite programs growing up was the Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. There was just something magical about a child’s toys coming to life and having their own fun and adventure. I especially liked Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day.
Pooh and his friends find themselves in a bit of a wind story in the 100-Acre Woods. Pooh the eternal optimist goes around wishing everyone a happy Winds-day. During a visit with Owl, they learn that the winds are a result of “a mild spring zephyr”. The storm becomes anything but mild crashing Owl’s tree to the ground leaving him homeless.
The wind gives way to a torrential rainstorm and a fairly vivid nightmare where Pooh dreams his honey is being stolen by Heffalumps and Woozles. I don’t know about you but for years I checked under my bed and in the closet to make sure there were no striped or plaid honey-eating animals that would attack me at night.
I had not thought about that show in years until today. The normally quiet spring weather with sunshine and cloudless skies was replaced today with a storm that would even have scared Pooh and Tigger. Trees were blowing nearly sideways and everyone walked like a drunken sailor.
Storms such as this are fairly rare in this part of Arizona and the local weatherman began reminding everyone about the Haboob of 2011. No offense but it’s really hard to take a word like haboob seriously. In fact I thought they made that up until I looked it up and found out it is an Arabic word for strong wind. I guess haboob sounds more menacing than strong wind.
The adolescent boy in me immediately began to ponder whether two haboobs would be referred to as haboobies and whether there was a haboob equivalent of the Fujita scale for tornadoes. And instead of categories 1-5 the haboob scale came in cups A-D.
The intense winds made the thoughts of walking extremely dangerous. The last thing I needed was to be strolling down the street and be mistaken for a mime walking against the wind. I know how much people hate mimes and I just didn’t need that.
So for perhaps the first time since we moved to Arizona almost 20 years ago I decided not to go outside to walk. Instead we drove to the local mall where I wandered around the various stores in order to get in my 10,000 steps.
It wasn’t all bad though. I did stop by the local T-shirt shop to see if they could make me a shirt with a picture of the impending dust storm on the back and on the front it would say “Haboobies – yes they are real”. I could make a fortune.
0 Comments