Well, all I can say is I should have been careful what I wished for!  When I
expressed jealousy of Steve's recent thunderstorms because it's sooooo
awfully hot here, I should have known better.
Last night we had the worst storm of my life.  And it can storm around here,
that's for sure.  We've had many bad ones in the last 3 years but this one
was the worst one.  It lasted from 3 am until 6:30 am.
The lightning was so bright, it illuminated the whole bedroom to brighter
than daylight.  It doesn't help that we've got windows on 3 sides!  The
thunder was so loud it felt like we were in the middle of a war zone.  There
was less than a second between lightning and thunder, sometimes there were
dangerous sounding cracks that made me think something really close by had
been struck.  The whole house shook and the pictures rattled.  This was
quite nervous making because the construction of the house is really shoddy
and the walls are the thickness of a single brick (4 inches?).
The rain was coming down so hard that it was being blasted through the
cracks in the window frame and our curtains were soaking wet.
Needless to say, not much sleeping was going on.  Vino was such a brave boy
though, he hung out in bed with us the whole time and didn't flinch at all.
After a while, he turned his back on the window with the brightest lightning
flashes and stayed facing that way for the rest of the night.  He was very
sweet though and even purred when we petted him.  We are very proud :-)
This morning I finally got up at 9:30 and the street looks a real mess.
Broken branches and pieces of palm tree everywhere.  Snails crawling up the
outside walls of the house.  The temperature was only 25C instead of the
usual 32C by this time of day.  It is very gloomy and dreary but I love it
because it's been sunny every day for about 2 months, so the change is good.
Unfortunately, our phone downstairs got fried (the one upstairs works) and
my wonderful external USB modem is also fried.  Had to connect to my old
internal modem to get on the internet.  We'll have to get a new phone and
hopefully I can find this modem again.  I used to have my phone line going
through my UPS but that part of it died a while ago.  I guess I'll unplug
the phone line before bed from now on, since the rainy season is going to be
coming soon.
As for other news, I got a scary email from my friend Holly who was here
visiting me recently.  While she was here, she had about 8 moles removed and
a biopsy on 2 suspicious looking ones.  People are always getting health
stuff done when they visit because it's so cheap here and the service is so
good.
Anyway, they emailed her the results and the one on the back of her leg is
malignant but in the early stages.  So she has to get to a dermatologist
asap and have more biopsies on the surrounding areas to make sure they got
it all.
I sure hope they did get it.  I guess it's lucky she had this done here
because she wouldn't have had it done back home in Canada because it's too
expensive and she kept putting it off.  She has really white skin with lots
of moles.  Dennis and I are going to get ourselves checked over again, can
never be too sure with this stuff!  Scary!
--
Britta
Sandpaper kisses, a cuddle and a purr. I have an alarm clock that's covered
in fur!
Check out pictures of Vino at:
http://photos.yahoo.com/badwilson click on the Vino album