19:30 GMT
Just now Swami, Minerva and I had to come in from the screen porch. Rain is getting my laptop wet. This is only the second evening since getting to Florida that we've been inside. I don't like it a bit I can't afford to ruin another computer.
21:59 GMT
I'm posting this from my phone. It's very quiet around the house now. M. Lee is getting up early to do a Metric Century so he's already sleeping. Swami, Minerva and I are still inside. The storm fried the router and the modem so no internet. It was fast and furious.
A low pressure center settled over Cancun, squished the topical storm brewing there and spewed it out over the Gulf, or so says Weather Underground. A wisp of that must have made it up to Alligator Creek. Something did anyway. And it dropped two, count them.....ONE.....TWO..... bolts of lightning right on our little cracker shack. Holy FUCKING GOD!
The house is on stilts and the lightning dropped below the upper level. I swear I saw it possess my computer screen for a moment. I know that's impossible but my new theory about lightning is that, like rainbows, it has an aura surrounding it as well as being the "thing" we see with our primate vision. Anyway...TWO...
BAM!!! BAM!!!
My teeth could have exploded right out of my head and it wouldn't have shocked me more. There was only enough time after the first blast to babble and huddle together before the second bomb exploded somewhere between us and Frieda's Pineapple Palm (which touches the house). Did I say Holy Fucking God?
And then it was over but for the rumbling and the rain. Now frogs are happily croaking outside in the lagoon otherwise known as the lawn.
4 comments:
Be careful! And, I think that for quite an extensive area around a lightning "bolt," there is indeed an aura of static charge that loves electronic devices. Speaking as an ex-phoneman who has seen a few melted phones.
It fried the thermostat, the A/C, a router, the cable connection for TV and internet, the stove, the garage door opener. These things were widely dispersed around the house. It was like being bombed with a combination of an actual loud bomb and a massive EMP. I sit here in my sweat, windows open, smelling the salty rot of Alligator Creek, "real Florida" as she says, and I eke out a trickle of internet from my phone, but not too much or I'll trigger the secret cap and lose my favorite phone number. Yeah yeah, first world problems, whatever, the suffering is still REAL, man.
I believe it was that "aura of static electricity" that I saw last night on my computer screen. It was really eerie. I immediately slammed the lid down so it wouldn't fry my laptop, which it did not, but it made a believe out me.
Ahhhh... M.Lee! Wonderful to hear from you. I believe this is the first time you have ever commented on my blog. I take the fact that you rose beyond your suffering, risking even the dreaded data cap, a true measure of the total awesomeness of our electronic visitation last night.
As you hang onto the network by a single, slender blinking thread, I wish lots of separate incidents of luck as you replace all that stuff.
Here, we laugh at the cap, or, my son does, and I cringe and pony up the extra charges, ten bucks at a time.
Post a Comment