LifePundit

Three Strikes

Did you miss me? I've been gone.

I've been out in the back yard doing primal scream therapy. I've had it. We were struck by lightning for the THIRD time this summer on Monday. This time was the worst. Not only did we lose our phone service, Internet and cable TV, but the lightning fried our well and two televisions.

This afternoon the well and all else (except for the dead TVs) were fixed. This is beginning to make me really cranky.

I was washing a tomato when it struck one of our TVs. Yes, I know better than to have my hands in running water in a lightning storm, but when you have a lightning storm every single afternoon during the cooking-dinner hour, you start to get slack. Fortunately, my hand was not in the water at that moment, but when the lightning blew out the TV in the kitchen and I heard the breakers go I did what all sane people would do. I screamed and tossed my tomato, which splatted on the floor.

When I realized that I was still here and the tomato needing cleaning up, I was grateful that I wasn't dead but was rattled. (I don't really think I was close to being hit but I was standing without three feet of the fried, turned-off TV and it made quite an impressive BANG-YOU'RE-DEAD sound.)

I'm glad none of us were hurt, the house didn't catch fire and that the horses weren't struck. I'm trying to hold onto that thought instead of....

Why do we have insurance if we can't file a claim?
(If we file a claim we lose our "no claims" discount.)

Anyway. When it gets right down to it, I've discovered that running water is even more important to me than the Internet and the telephone.

Even if said water is so full of Clorox (they shocked the well after putting the new pump in) that the whole house smells like a laundromat and we're buying bottled water even for the cat and I'm only washing whites.... And of course the hose is running in the yard, trying to run all that Clorox out.

So what this all means is that I'm back. At least until struck again.

The Old Goat Eats Goat

Okay, you're on an island that's supposed to have the best restaurants in the Caribbean. So what do you do? If you're my husband, you go to a seaside cafe in Phillipsburg and.... you order GOAT for lunch.

Some things you just aren't supposed to eat. No wonder they're all in a tree.

more cat pictures

The Vacation is Over

I'm back -- and kind of sorry about it.

The switch on our water pump had a problem so we had no water. Now it's back -- and I'm back to doing laundry. A working well and water pump is one of the world's greatest inventions.

The lightning that gave me technical problems before vacation did something to my computer and my speakers and printer quit working. The lights were on but nobody was home. Finally, late last night, I got it working again. Had to uninstall a bunch of stuff and re-install, plus had to use different USB ports. I think the lightning got some of my USB ports. Now I have wires going everywhere and am beginning to feel like Medusa.

And then nobody remembered how to hook the TV back up to all the wires and boxes (since we unplugged everything before we left). I've about had it with wires and boxes.

The vet is coming to see the horses this afternoon. One injured an ankle while we were gone and the other caught a cough. Ah me.

And my father fell, but he's okay.

I'll post pictures and write up a little about our trip to St. Maarten/St. Martin. It's a beautiful place, no hotter than here, and I didn't have any wires or livestock to concern myself with.

And to think we could have stayed two weeks!

I'm Back

I should have told you I'd be silent for a while because I was going on vacation. Actually, what I usually do is compose my posts in advance and let them roll out while I'm gone. Between the lightning damage, work deadlines and old people who keep falling (but are okay), I barely got myself packed and out of here.

I unplugged absolutely everything before I left so no lightning damage. The only adventure was that the sheriff's department called Saintly Brother to tell him that one of our doors was unlocked and he had to come over to check out things.

Bless the sheriff. Bless Saintly Brother. Saintly Brother said he didn't think the door had ever been locked....

We have seven exterior doors. This is what happens when you build your own house and the local building supply place lets you buy their display doors (gorgeous) for practically nothing. We have doors where we were supposed to have windows. Trouble is, we forget to lock them all. Oops!

We went to St. Maarten/St. Martin and had a wonderful, restful time.

The indoor cat can't get enough of me now. How she missed me! I love being loved.

I'll be posting photos and stories later. Paul ate curried goat. I think that is just wrong. We had goats as pets when I was little. You don't eat pets, though chevre and feta are sublime.

Paul's suitcase still hasn't arrived, we have no food in the house (other than cat food), I need to pick up the horses and I'll download photos, etc. later.

Travel is a great pleasure. So is getting home!

How I Trained My Husband Not to Shower in a Lightning Storm

While I'm on the subject of lightning, there are several stories I could tell but I'll tell them one at a time. I've had lightning strike close to me twice -- once at the beach when I felt electricity run through the wet sand, and once here at home when I was outside and my hair stood on end, then a bolt hit the house.

I respect lightning.

As regular readers know, I married a Yankee. He's spent most of our marriage scoffing at me and my lightning cautions. But one day, I trained him not to shower in a lightning storm.

Actually, I had nothing to do with it. But I got to watch and it's the funniest thing I've ever seen.

It was two summers ago and Paul had been mowing. He was filthy, so when a storm blew up and he had to come inside, he jumped right into the shower.

Don't talk on the phone or take a shower during a lightning storm, okay? At least not a phone that's connected by wires to your wall.

Paul thought I was silly. So he was taking his shower. He might be a Yankee, but he's a very clean Yankee.

The lightning was striking all around our house. So I burst into the bathroom and demanded that he get Out Of The Shower NOW. He was drying off anyway so he stepped outside of the tub to humor me. And then WHAM! Lightning struck a giant pine tree not far from the house. The force blew all the photographs off of the wall and the glass in their frames shattered on the bathroom floor.

Paul instinctively ran to put on his rubber-soled tennis shoes. And was wearing nothing else. I guess he figured the shoes would keep him safe from shock.... Not really sure but it was great fun to watch.

The ground at the base of the pine tree looked like it had been hit by a bomb. The pine tree died.

Nobody showers in a lightning storm around here anymore unless they're really dirty and really really fast.

Another storm has blown up and I've been racing it, trying to finish this post. I need to unplug the computer. I guess I was finished anyway.

It's spectacular to watch and I love the smell afterwards. Which is a good thing, because I have a feeling we're skipping our showers tonight. (TMI. Sorry.)

Lightning Strikes Twice! Maybe More.

Don't stand too close to me. We've bit hit by lightning the past two weekends.

The first time we were struck by lightning last week wasn't too bad -- just hit the modem. However, that kept me off the Internet for a few days while I waited for it to be fixed.

Then, on the Fourth of July, we had some serious fireworks -- major lightning storm. It hit the streetside cable box which serves us and several neighbors and it hit the phone/tv/Internet connection on the side of the house. Zowey! You should have heard it. You KNEW something was fried.  And because so many people's connections were hit by lightning and we had to wait in line, we didn't get fixed until this afternoon.

A friend of mine said I need to stop sinning so I'll no longer be a lightning magnet. All I know is that I'm staying out of the shower (or outdoors) in the next storm.

Hope to be visiting my friends and posting soon!

Don't You Even Think About Lowering the Speed Limit

It's already painful to pay close to $4.00/gallon for gas. And now Senator John Warner from Virginia wants to lower the national speed limit to 55 mph. That's hitting us where it really hurts. I'm not slowing down. If I find a clear spot on the road, I'm going to move along at a nice, fast, legal pace.

How about passing a law where senators can travel on MWF and members of the House can travel TTh? If we're going to start restricting how we travel, let's start at the top.

And I said travel, not drive, because I figure they're flying as much as driving. I remember the 55 speed limit, and that's only good in a school zone. (Just kidding.)

If I'm burning up that much money to gas up my car, I should get to burn up my fuel at the rate of speed  -- and mpgs -- that I choose so long as it's safe for the road and driving conditions. If I want to save money and gas, I can drive my SUV slower, or I can drive my hybrid just about any way I want.

Driving over 70 and running the air conditioning in my Prius, I can still get close to 50 mpgs. If I turn off the air conditioning, I can get in the low 50s. Why should I be forced to crawl like a snail to save gas when I'm already saving gas?

The car has a consumption screen that shows what kind of mpgs you're getting. Everyone who makes it through their first year of driving a Prius without an accident should get an award, because that screen is a major distraction. I drive like that screen is a video game and I'm not winning unless I'm staying above the 50 mpg. line (and manufacturing "turtles," which are these little leaf-shaped things that really look like turtles and signify how much energy you're regenerating). That screen has taught me how to drive to maximize my mileage.  It's also taught me that I'm only once glance away from getting killed, so I'd better pay attention to the road.

The market is responding to high gas prices. People are dumping their SUVs as fast as they can. Senator, you don't need to change the speed limit.

You need to start drilling Here and Now.

What Kind of Pants Would You Stab Someone For?

There's a strange local news story about a 36-year-old man who stabbed a teenager at a convenience store "over a pair of pants." The teenager is in the hospital and the grown man is in jail.

I think it should be illegal for a reporter to leave us hanging with a story like that. Read it yourself and see if you don't come away with the same question:

What kind of pants were they?

Where did the pants come from? Do they sell pants in convenience stores? What kind of pants are so desirable that you'd stab someone over them?

Is there a pants shortage? Are these pants that would make my butt look small? Can I stab somebody and get a pair?

I wrote the reporter asking for more info. on the pants. I explained to him that I need this information to try to make sense of the world.

I'll let you know if I find out.

Physical Therapy and Immortality

If only he worked out more, my father would live forever. He believes this and he's about to prove it. He'll be 96 one month from today and he's passed his doctor's generous predictions for his longevity, given his aortic stenosis and congestive heart failure, by one year.

So my father's given up on working out in his room with his dumb bells and he's going back to physical therapy at the assisted living place where he lives. He says he can tell that it's helping him. He's stronger and feels better.

He's still on oxygen, still struggling to stay vertical, still hits the floor about once a week. I think the floor is starting to complain.

I told this story about my father's return to physical therapy and his improvement to my husband, Paul, who's been such a wonderful support during my father's brinkmanship with death over the last couple of years.

"That's great he's working out," said Paul, who's 51. "When I move up there to the nursing home, I'll join him."

I thought this was funny, so I told Saintly Brother. He said, "The difference is our father can run on fumes; Paul can't."

It's a wondrous thing what the human will can overcome.