I sat outside for a short while today. I spent the morning doing housework, you know, unloading and reloading the dishwasher, folding laundry, scrubbing out the slow cooker from the pot roast I made for Dan yesterday. I took my kindle outside, cleaned off my deck chair after yesterday’s ridiculously violent, albeit short, thunderstorm, and sat down. As soon as my rear end hit the chair, I heard a roll of thunder from the west, which is the Gulf of Mexico. It didn’t scare me though, as it’s a daily occurrence here, and so often doesn’t produce a drop of rain. I listened as it approached.

It was kind of surreal. There was no other sound besides the thunder, no birds, very few cars on the street, no one talking in their yards, no lawnmowers running. Not a sound. Not even a breeze at least not until I’d been out there a good half hour. But as it’s wont to do this time of year, the thunder roll kept up, crashing a couple of times. I kept alternately reading, then dozing off, my kindle repeatedly falling in my lap. I checked the radar on the Weather Channel, and it showed a line of thunderstorms moving up the west coast of Florida, skimming my town on the west side, and then dissipating. I went back to reading, and listening, and dozing, every once in a while to be startled from my reverie by a louder, closer clap of thunder. It was a warning. A few raindrops teased my arms and face, and one or two fell on the fact of my kindle, and my phone. The thunder was still approaching.

I gathered my kindle, my phone, and my glass of water and retreated back to the safety of my small house here. I sat on my couch and idly wondered if it would be like yesterday when Dan and I were watching TV, the pot roast cooking, an L3 d suddenly the wind went from 10 mph to about 25, blowing an incredible downpour horizontally past my windows. The tempest lasted only about 15 minutes and left plenty of downed palm fronds in its wake. But today, I am still waiting for the storm to boil and roil, though I have my doubts that it is anything but bravado since the thunder is getting farther away now.

Florida. So much of the year the weather is incomparable. Sunny, not so humid (today it’s 85° and 74% humidity) and a breeze blowing in from the water. There are days that I spend the whole day out on the deck, but not today. And most likely not for a few weeks. The weather will just begin letting up when I am in CT next month and revert back to its benign beautiful self.

I am alone today. Dan had to take his brother for a Covid test, for a procedure he’s having tomorrow to try to solve his AFIB. He had a simpler one a few weeks ago but it didn’t work. He’s nervous about tomorrow. He has to stay in the hospital overnight, and he has so many other health issues he’s worried that he will be one of the less than 1% of patients in whom this procedure is not successful. I’m sure he’ll be fine, but he’s had a lot of problems this year, so I get his fear. I almost called/texted a couple friends I have not seen in so long, to invite them over, but honestly, I am tired today. I had one of those nights where you think you were awake and not sleeping but it turns out you probably didn’t lay there for 2 ½ hours not sleeping, so you must have. Still, I am tired, as if I didn’t sleep those 2 ½ hours.

The thunder just silenced, in the last 10 minutes, though now it’s raining. So, it’s almost over, and has mostly missed us.

Time to finish this meditative rambling on the thunderstorm, and time to start my new book club book.

Love and light.