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Have you ever looked out the window in the morning and wondered, "Hey! When did that big honkin' tree limb get so close to the roof? Um, wait, at that angle, wouldn't it have to be on the roof? Or possibly through it?"

From outside, it doesn't look like anything went through the roof, but I'm pretty sure there's a bit of damage there. Can't tell from here exactly what the damage to the tree looks like, but it wouldn't surprise me if that limb had been struck by lightning during yesterday's storm.

And at the library yesterday, all I had noticed of the storm was that the lights went out while I was trying to read.

(no subject)

So I did make it to the library yesterday without melting, enjoying time spent in the air-conditioned stacks and carrels attempting to either get my brain focused enough to read or find a good place to sleep. Eventually I needed to thaw out a bit, so went for a walk in a wooded spot nearby and made some calls on the cell phone while cicadas sang to each other overhead. (Ack! I've become one of those people!) When I'd begun sweating again, I walked under a hot and overcast sky back to the library, wondering when we were going to get those thunderstorms we'd been promised.

I'd been sitting at a table in the periodicals section reading some fluffy magazine for maybe twenty minutes when the lights started flickering. It was interesting to watch lights and computers go off entirely, then one or two lights would come on, followed by the monitors glowing bluely. Finally everything stayed dark entirely except for a couple of overhead lights running off their emergency power. Most of the patrons shifted to chairs closer to the light and kept on reading. One or two people whipped out their cell phones. Librarians explained that though we couldn't tell from where we were, there was a storm raging outside. When I got tired of whichever brain-candy magazine was in my hand, I went out to see for myself.

By the time I got out front to witness the weather, there wasn't much happening, just a bit of thunder rumbling and a bit of rain. A woman in the lobby said she'd seen a lightning strike set a transformer on fire, so we all guessed the lights wouldn't be coming back on too soon. I hung around the library for a few more minutes, then walked home.

Don't you hate it when all the streets in your neighborhood have power except for yours? Yep, me too. (I think I noticed that the roof was leafier than usual, but I was more focused on getting inside and lighting a candle before full darkness descended.) I ate some cereal for supper, called the appropriate number to report the power outage, then tried reading by candlelight. After a couple hours, a housemate came home, decided it was pointless to sit in the dark doing nothing, and suggested we go to a local coffeehouse to read. So we sat on the coffeehouse's well-lit porch reading our respective books a while (my current one: Neil Gaiman's Stardust), dialed my landline phone number to find out if the answering machine would pick up (it didn't), then decided to come home to the powerless house anyway.

Here at home, we lit candles again and chatted away, cordially complaining about the heat and discussing the intricacies of character relationships on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The convo ended with me telling him to enjoy his cold shower (He needed this because it was still about twenty degrees too warm in the house. Really, I'm sure that talk of Willow Rosenberg didn't have everything to do with it.) and going back to read some more.

Now the temperature outside is amazingly comfortable, yesterday's storm nearly having washed away memories of the oppression of heat. If I can just find a bit of energy, I need to go for a walk.