Boy, listen to that thunder! God's doing some serious thinkin' tonight. I bet he's saying, "On second thought, maybe I shoulda given it all to the monkeys."
We had a terrific thunderstorm here last night. In my parking lot, I swear to god. It didn't start out that way. For most of the evening, I could see some impressive lightening off in the distance. I couldn't hear the thunder tho, over the noise of my fans. You see, it got up to 85 degrees here yesterday. That's very warm for us. Too fucking warm, in my opinion. It's supposed to get that hot today, as well. Very few homes, in the greater Seattle-Tacoma area, have air conditioning. And living on the top floor of the building with windows all on one side, no possible cross breeze, I had several fans turned on. But I digress. Not long after I went to bed, some time after midnight, I started to hear the thunder. Eventually, the thunder and lightening came to visit me in my parking lot. The lightening had been impressive all evening, big and bright and clear. But the thunder! There was no way you could sleep through that. It was so loud, it was like explosions. Things shook in the wake of it! Luckily, Pru didn't freak out. Until it got very very close, she was sitting in the bedroom window sill, watching. With her mighty hunter face on.
We don't get many thunderstorms here. It's usually not hot and humid enough for them. I had total flashbacks to living in Oklahoma. Standing outside and watching storms moving through the distance. Watching tornados move through the distance. Tornados pretty much suck, if they are coming at you, but if they pass you by, they are pretty interesting to watch. I think the flash floods scared me more. Only once, while living in Tulsa, was a storm bad enough, the tornado close enough, to cause me any real worry. My parents were out that evening, and they actually got caught and had to pull over and take shelter in a hotel lobby. The road was closed due to flash flood, and it was too dangerous to continue driving until the storm passed. I was home alone. My mom stood in line, at the pay phone, called to check on me, and then would just get back in the long line again. It's the only time I've ever chased down the dog and cat, and put them in the central bathroom, so I wouldn't have to chase them down when the tornado came to get us. I had a flashlight in there, and a radio with batteries. Eventually, i just moved into the bathroom, with the phone, just in case.
As you can tell, we survived. So did the house. It didn't actually touch us. Bunker and Magnum [dog and cat, respectively] were good company, sitting in the bathtub with me. Leaning on me, reassuringly. Everything turned out fine, and here I am. You know, there is some kind of law in Oklahoma, that new houses need to be made up of a certain percentage of brick. It was pretty bizarre looking to me, at first, moving there. After living in the pacific northwest. But I imagine they have good reason.