I may have mentioned that I am NOT a summer person. I do not like being warm, sweaty, hot, dusty, parched, sticky, uncomfortable, clammy or wet. I do not like bugs – spiders, June bugs, bees, mosquitoes, flies, ants, beetles or anything that you could classify as creepy-crawly. For the most part, summer and I do not get along. I prefer a nice, cool autumn day or even a rainy spring day. I’ll even take a winter blizzard because I can always get warm.

This almost-summer so far has been a challenge. We have two elderly automobiles. One (mine) has non-functioning air conditioning. I drive with the windows down and feel thankful that I have very short hair that can be finger-combed back into place. The other car has partially-functioning air conditioning, but it has bigger issues with its ignition so it’s sitting at the moment. We had one car that had air conditioning when I was a kid, but my Dad would never use it.  He thought it wasted too much gas.

Yesterday we experienced temperatures in the high-80’s that felt like the low-90’s once you factored in the humidity, etc. For a non-summer person, it wasn’t great. Last night a large thunderstorm tore through our area. We had the windows closed and the air conditioning on in the house so we couldn’t hear the wind blowing. Apparently it was pretty bad. We had a few light-flickering instances so we shut the computers down. Around 9:00, we were watching TV, and the satellite dish lost the signal. It came back, and we were settling in again when suddenly everything went dark. A large tree had come down at the corner of our street (5 or 6 houses down), and it was on the wires. There were wires sparking in the road.

Of course, the first thing I did (in the dark) was knock over the glass of milk sitting on the table beside my chair. Ever try to mop up a milk spill by candlelight? We found flashlights and candles. My son got his scanner out and started listening to the emergency stations. There were trees, poles and wires down all around us. Our power company’s recording told us there were 90 houses dark in our immediate area, and there was no estimate of when it would be fixed.

I opened up windows to try to get a breeze, and without electronics to entertain us, we spent time with each other instead. My phone battery was nearly dead so I took the phone out to the car to charge it back up. My older son took some videos in the driveway of the awesome lightning display that was still dancing around in the clouds south of us. It reminded me of camping when I was a kid (for some reason). Maybe it was because my Gramma always tried to keep us kids entertained when we got bored. She’d make shadow puppets with her fingers and a flashlight, or she’d always have some silly story to tell us. I found myself laughing a lot with my sons last night.

We did have to keep an eye on our sump pump. Without electricity if the drain filled too high, we’d have to bail to keep the basement from flooding. I worried also about the refrigerator. We kept it closed and hoped the power would come back soon. The cats didn’t care and enjoyed the windows and sat watching the darkened yard.

At bedtime, my younger son and I went to bed. My older son sat up for a bit to keep an eye on the sump pump. It wasn’t very comfortable sleeping. The sheets were sweaty, and even with the windows wide open, the room was warm. This, too, reminded me of my childhood and sweaty nights, tossing and turning and trying to get to sleep. I never had air conditioning growing up, but we always had fans running. We didn’t even have that last night. The room was a little scary without the lights of the bedside clocks to keep me company.

Around 1:00, the repair truck arrived. I was asleep so I missed that event. At 3:00, the power came back on. We all had to get up, shut windows and shut the lights off. It will be interesting this morning to see the aftermath of the storm. I will take pictures if I can.

Image from Pinterest