You're kiddin', right?

About three this morning we had a severe thunderstorm roll through. For about 45 minutes there was constant bright lightning and ferocious thunder. When I got up at one point to go to the bathroom, Sundance jumped off the bed and followed me and when I returned to bed, she trotted behind me and hid under the bed.

A bit later we lost power, and I got up to call in the outage. The phone that does not require electricity is in the basement, so I took a flashlight and found my way down there and over to the corner where the phone is on the wall behind boxes of Christmas stuff and exercise equipment. Just as I picked up the phone, the flashlight went dead. So in the dark but with the help of the lightning flashes through the small basement windows, I made my way back through the obstacle course and upstairs to get another flashlight. There is an ample supply of these fortunately, and I was able to get back to the basement and complete the report by phone.

As I came back up the stairs, I discovered Cassidy huddled in the corner by the basement door with her head hidden behind the door. Like an ostrich with her head in the sand, she apparently had decided she would be okay if she couldn't see the lightning.

After all the excitement, I had trouble getting back to sleep and got about a half hour right before having to get up at 6:45. Because of a mysterious leak in the Vibe, we had to be at a local dealer's service department at 8:00. We took a bit longer there than anticipated because we looked at a possible replacement vehicle. I was anxious to get home to catch a little sleep before heading to work. Today I am at the library from 11:45 to 8:15. It is only an 8-hour work day, but it is a late one and I was short on sleep. We left the car there and came back home.

I set my alarm clock and tried to doze. Tom had planned to go and help Debbie with something and he had joked that he would be at the library before I was. As this thought wandered around in my head, I realized that Tom was my ride to work. So he could not be there before me and I had to get up and make sure he didn't drive off and leave me stranded.

About the time I got dressed -- still sluggish -- a guy banged on the door to see if we had any scrap metal for him to haul away. Tom got the old grille out and down the driveway, but the dude wanted to just back in and load it. In doing so, he managed to back into one of our trees. Once they got that undone, he discovered that he had damaged the trailer and the connector to the truck was near breaking. He tried to fix this and eventually called his son to come take all the stuff off the trailer for him. Meanwhile our driveway is blocked and Tom had to call Debbie to cancel out on that.

Everything did get cleared up enough for me to make it to work.

What a day! And it's just Monday morning!