Whew, that was close!

On Wednesday, I went out to get in a few sets of tennis, hopefully before any rain came. The temperature had cooled some on the front of a storm, and I and my opponent headed to the courts, about 5 minutes' drive away. During our warm-up time, there was lightning popping in all directions but nothing it seemed for 10-15 miles (flash...one mississippi, two mississippi...15). Just when we agreed to get the games started, the first drops came, the big ones that you know have lots of friend-drops coming fast and furious right behind. We'd scooped up our sweat towels, water-bottles, and racket bags and barely gotten to my truck when the deluge began. And I suggested that I'd go on to the gas station and fuel up while we see if it's a real storm or just 10 minutes of bluster. Immediately after gassing up, I decided that further tennis was not in that evening's plans, and headed on home. On the way, we had a couple cracks of lightning and simultaneous booms of thunder, and knew the worst of the lightning was right close.

Coming up the drive, I could see the Mag-dog standing in the driving rain and was raising hell at me to do something. It isn't at all uncommon for her to do that; she doesn't like thunder and lightning, and I don't blame her, but short of bringing a wet, muddy dog in the house (not happening) there's not much a feller can do. I parked the truck and sat there with the ignition off, knowing that she was still there barking her head off, but unable to hear it for the sound of the rain.


The only thing I'd noticed amiss when I went on inside was the lack of landline phone sevice, and I figured that was something that would be readily known and repaired by that utility company. The next morning, I found out why I didn't have a dial tone.

I only discovered this after noticing chunks of tree bark in the front yard, opposite site of the house from this tree. The 2nd picture shows where a root exploded between the tree and house. The last illustrates how close it is to Maggie's run...she's tethered to an overhead cable strung from one tree to another, which is about 30 feet away from and no more than 5 feet shorter than this white pine with the exploding bark.

• On a completely seperate and unrelated note: Fuck David Letterman and the white pig he rode in on.