Who Turned Out the Lights?!

Although I've had my fill of rain for a while I actually enjoy a good summer thunder storm - especially at night. There's something about the roaring thunder and flashes of lightening that spark the imagination. I grew up along the Hudson River Valley in upstate New York, which is near the Catskill Mountains. As a kid my Dad used to tell me that the sounds of thunder was from Rip Van Winkle waking up and bowling! The story of Rip, which was set in the Catskills, was created by American author Washington Irving - if you are unfamiliar with it check it out here.

Last night we had good thunderstorm - so good in fact that the electricity went out for quite some time.



Lightening hit a transformer and the sound of it blowing resonated through our town like a bomb going off. When I heard it I immediately jumped up and sprang into survival mode grabbing Ellie, clinging to Andy, and lighting every candle in the house.



You see the sound of the transformer shutting down was so loud that it scared the you know what right out of me.



My imagination started to run wild thinking about all the crazy things that could have caused the lights to go out. Of course, I didn't consider the obvious - a lighting strike - instead my mind went right to alien invasions. Maybe the fact that we had just watched the blockbuster movie Independence Day staring Will Smith is what caused my creative mind to conjure up all sorts of scary scenarios.

Once it was clear that we were safe from extinction by aliens I settled down with Andy and Ellie to enjoy some quite family togetherness while basking in the golden glow of a candle lit evening.