Gorilla Clouds

So, okay, I admit it. I am a weather junkie. I've been hooked my whole life. I think it got started when my parents would have to take me to the doctor. It was a 15 mile drive and the only way to keep me from fussing too much involved a couple of "Mom" tricks that worked perhaps a little too well. She had two favorite tricks. "Look at that pretty house! Did you see all the pretty flowers in the yard? Oh, look at that kitty on the doorstep!" Of course I'd sit up and pay attention. I've had a lifelong addiction to driving around neighborhoods and looking at homes -- dusk is the best time -- but that's not the subject of today's post.

Mom's other trick was to get me to look at the clouds and the sky. In the summer, we used to stretch out on the grass at home in the back yard and look at the clouds in the daytime and at night we'd stare up at the moon and stars. When we'd look at the clouds, our favorite game was to see what shapes came and went in the swirling white masses. There goes an angry wolf -- oh, there's an elephant -- oh look at that funny old man -- you know what I'm talking about. It's a kid thing. Well, I still do it. Guilty pleasure. Good way to zone out.

Today I was on the treadmill at the gym, zoned out staring out the window and across the parking lot and off into the distance. Up above, in a glittering deep blue sky, the most spectacular display played out before me. Clouds of white, every shade of grey and a few dense little black clouds roiled above in the sunshine. The hard edged clouds shape shifted and morphed and evaporated and reformed and positively danced to the music we were tuned into at the gym. The most memorable formation was a hard-edged blob that formed into a snarling gorilla that attacked a perfect [for a moment] version of North America [all the way from the North Pole to southern Mexico, with Alaska, Baja, Florida, and Hudson's Bay completely delineated.] The gorilla kept advancing on the continent and before my eyes Canada turned into Iceland, then joined the entire Eastern Seaboard as it fled into a towering baby thundercloud. The gorilla's head separated from his body and chased away the Mid-West, broke up Mexico and then got sucked into the thundercloud, which by then was darkening with rain.

But no rain fell. The thundercloud broke up, a dragon's tail swung in at an angle to do battle with the pieces, now shaped like slices of pie, a few muffins and a loaf of banana bread...

We finished our workout and went home and fixed lunch. Hubby had a gorilla burger and I munched on a huge bowl of fresh North American salad. I studied the weather, watched the sky, but the gorilla had fled for good.