Goodbye, farm.

Mr. B and I just finished a 20-hour date that was amazing...but the amazingness was overshadowed quite a bit by what preceded the date. My phone was ringing off the hook while I was in the tub getting ready. Eventually, the ringing was so insistant that I ran, dripping, for the phone. My childhood best friends, Harmony and Gwen, were on the phone warning me that a tornado had destroyed half of my home town of Woodward. My parents didn't answer the phone, so I rinsed and dried off.

I tried to call my parents, but couldn't reach them. I called my brother. He told me that the barn and sheds were gone. The house was still there, but the roof was gone and the house was probably irreparable. The house (in the pre-storm photo above) was more than 100 years old and had been in our family all that time. My childhood bedroom was my mother's childhood bedroom.

With shaking hands I got dressed and applied my makeup and nail polish. Painting your toenails while in shock is a difficult and ridiculous task. Mr. B. arrived and rubbed my back while I called my parents on their cell phone. Friends and family were already helping them gather the flock and salvage what they could from the wreckage. Today I found out that the family dogs survived. My ancient cat, Tut, survived, too, but Hooligan and some of the barn cats are MIA.

Good Morning America started off at the farm this morning. Dad's quoted in an AP story and will be interviewed via telephone on CNN at 10, 9 Central tonight. They should be on GMA again tomorrow, too.

It's all so surreal. The house had been in our family for more than 100 years, so it was easy to take for granted that it would always be there. I lost belongings. I may have lost pets. My parents have to start over. And my home is gone.