A short, vigorous thunderstorm rolled over my house late this afternoon. A lot of rain for a short time, but it didn’t seem like a lot of wind. I was wrong. A microburst of some kind must have slammed the back yard, because when I looked outside, I thought, something’s missing. What’s missing? The deck umbrella.

The damn thing was mostly broken anyway. One of the supports was busted somehow  during the winter, so even at best it was only half of an umbrella, and yesterday it wasn’t even open. Yet somehow the wind had taken it somewhere. Where? I didn’t see it on the deck or in the yard.

It was on the roof, pole and all. Must have been a freakishly strong wind to open the thing up, lift it and the few pounds of pole away from the cast-iron patio table, and deposit it on the roof. Chairs were moved but not knocked over, and one plant had been tipped over, but otherwise there was no hint of strong wind. Odd.

Once the storm was completely over, I got my ladder – the hard part was getting the ladder out from behind the debris in the garage, not getting to the roof – and persuaded the umbrella wreckage to come back to the ground.