The night sky was dark, angry clouds raced over barren leafless trees. An obscured moon lent just enough reflection to make clashing, overlapping clouds look like grey puzzle pieces floating on swiftly moving black water. The wind howled and pushed against the house. Inside curtains moved as if from a gentle breeze even though the windows were closed and locked. Ceiling rafters tapped morse code cadences and inside doors and walls creaked like the decks of old sailing ships.
I lay in bed not about to fall asleep, covers thrown off, wearing Corona lounge pants and no shirt. I lay listening to the night. The night had a lot to say. A half minute long barrage on the windows less than two feet from my supine form made me think that the storm glass and window pane just might be shattering soon and slicing those lounge pants and flesh to ribbons.  After the sound, like an out of balance clothes dryer drum abated I sat up on the edge of bed facing the curtains. Watching the curtains undulating like seaweed in low tide.
“You know, I’m not really sleepy yet,” I confided to myself. A quick look at an iPhone app told me what I already knew, Windy. The details revealed steady 27 mph winds gusting up to 50, with bursts up to 65 mph. I though it unfair that wind could go faster than the cars heading west on the on the Interstate tonight. I got up, using just the iPhone screen to negotiate to the bedroom door, leaving Jenni to sleep since she has to work Thursday and I have it off.
I walked the darkened house still listening to the wind and the night. Earlier I had brought in a few pieces of a garden table that had been grabbed by a gust and dashed into the side of the house, I remembered where it was in the darkened theatre of my creaking house and avoided sharp edges. Amazed that the power had not even flickered I decided to head to the chuckpace.com World Headquarters and begin a post. For about a minute I sat in front of the LCD laptop screen and thought “what should I write about?” Electrical concerns put visions of “Reddy Kilowatt” in my head and that led to “Speedy Alka-Seltzer” that and earlier I had to take an antacid due the pizza I had brought home after work. When I sat down to put this together I launched my iTunes, (of course) and started playing Tchaikovsky's "The Tempest, Op. 18", Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1985), Conducted by Claudio Abbado , one of the greatist building-storm songs ever written. Its been 2 hours since I got out of that bed and wandered and wondered, and started this post. The memory lane trip with company logo-mascots got a bit out of hand when I remembered "Mr. Zip," the post office's effort to get us all to use the new postal zip codes to get our mail to its destination quicker.

The wind is still whipping and ripping around outside and I'm going to finish this and go lay on the couch, far from any windows. The rafter creaking is worse out here in the World HQ and the front room. I would swear that there was an upstairs on this house and that some very large people were up there dancing in their stocking feet if the front room didn't have a cathedral ceiling. Looks like its headphones on and the iPod/iPhone playing loud upbeat music.
Remember,
MAIL moves the country,
ZIP CODE moves the mail!
Chuck Pace ©2009 
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