It was a hot and stormy night . . . at least that's how it ended up. It was a hot day, as it has been for a while, and as usual we had our bedroom window open with the hope of cooling it off (and it was frigidly cold this morning). Usually we have to endure the cats jumping on and off the windowsill, and at first that was waking us up, but now we have learned to ignore it. Tonight it was “Mother Nature's” turn to wake us up, and not because we had a glass of water before we went to bed.

Somewhere around 3:30 AM I awoke, and at first I had no idea why I was awake, but a mere moment later the sky lit up as if some crazed photographer was attacking my backyard with his flash, the accompanying thunder told me otherwise. My new sound system is powerful enough to vibrate the house in little bits, but this crash of noise shook the world. When the second pair of lightning and thunder came near simultaneously I had my reason for the extreme volume assailing my ears. When the power knocked out from the second blast (for only 5 seconds or so) I was not immediately surprised, though I do wonder if anything was struck.

I was disappointed when Holly pointed out two things, one, the computers were now down, and two, we were facing the wrong direction to actually see the forked lightning. After that second impressive blast from Thor's hammer I was wide awake with no near hope of returning to sleep (I was thankfully able to return to sleep sometime around 4:00 AM). Sure enough my server was off, but the reboot brought everything back up, and I never did see more than a reflection of the lightning, and the sound of the thunder drifted north of us and was quieter and getting quieter. I don't think I've ever been quite so close to a storm before, and my but it was exhilarating!