Note to Mother Nature

Enough with the lightning bolts already.

There are many reasons I love living up here. In the Top Five is the weather. Hot but not unbearable in the summer (although the rest of this week looks icky), and delightfully cold in the winter. And snow. Lots of snow. Which I adore.

Things that we do NOT have here (or at least not as frequently or as intense as some places I could name): hurricanes, tsunamis, deadly droughts, killer floods (I live on a hill), earthquakes, tornadoes, plagues of locusts or frogs, anthrax outbreaks, bird flu (yet), collapsing tunnels, volcanic eruptions, avalanches, sinkholes, or impact events. At least not so far.

What we do have, in addition to snow, are thunderstorms. Which come complete with lightning, for no extra charge.

I hate lightning. Don’t ask why. It’s irrational. I just hate it. I am a lightning weenie. Freaks me all the way out. Always has. Always will.

So BH and I were sitting in the sunroom at the back of the house yesterday, chatting about various and sundry things. The first wave of thunderstorms were moving through. Rumble, rumble, crash, bang. I was pretending that all was the right with the world. He knows me well, and tried to get me to breathe, and unclutch the couch cushions, which were in danger of being shredded.

And then….

BA-BOOM!

a bolt of lightning exploded out of the meadow behind our house. I yelped, stuttered, pointed. It wasn’t bad enough that we almost just got nailed by lightning, but the meadow was on fire.

The good news is that where there is lightning, there is usually rain. The downpour that followed was heavy enough to put out the fire.

But, I mean, honestly….. was that completely necessary?

Today’s weather report looks better.

19 Replies to “Note to Mother Nature”

  1. I feel for you. I never saw lightning like this, or so many t-storms sweeping through until I moved here. I hope I never see my meadow on fire, though. That would freak me right out. Glad you came through it okay.

  2. Let’s see…my lightening experience is pretty interesting.

    1. Last summer when I told my mother to turn off the A/C during a severe storm she didn’t. Luckily I was away and a bolt of lightening struck it.Glad I had a surger protector.

    2. A few years ago lightening struck the backyard knocking down a tree.

    3. I don’t know if it was the rumble of the thunder or the lightening but it made my neighbor’s security system go off and it didn’t stop beeping for 2 hours.

  3. From a Rochester, NYian & obviously it was raining here too… I love lightning and saw a ton of huge bolts– the sky was yellow and green and dark blue and pink all within an hour!! It was madness. But lightning does scare me because I always think of how close it can get to other people and cause damage/hurt people. I always think thunder is scary- seeing that huge bolt and then you know the thunder is coming and CRASH!!!!!!!!

    I’m kind of storm-high, still! Hyperness.

  4. agreed

    I love a nice storm, but I hate the lightning. Light thunder is alright, but I also hate huge booms. Immense lightning and thunder freak me the hell out!

  5. Trust me, had that happened to me, I’d be running inside, getting in bed and pulling the covers over my head. And that would be just from the lightning, not from the meadow catching fire. XD
    Not really necessary, but better than running out and trying to get hit by lightning, right? Right.

  6. I live in Florida so I guess I am just used to the storms. We get rain almost everyday sometime after 3. I remember when I was younger we practically always played outside until it started to rain. That was our signal to head back inside.

    My dog is SO afraid of thunder though its not even funny. One of these days she is going to have a heart attack she shakes so. That and fireworks.

  7. I know that this is unrelated but……..

    I sent in my SASE a while back for a speak DVD card and it was mailed back to me today for “insufficient postage for destination”. I just want to know if you have any cards left so that I don’t mail it again for no reason.
    Thanks.
    p.s. I’m afraid of lightning too.

  8. loved the thunder storms going through here today. I like to curl up in my bed with a book and snuggle in. Something about it being so noisy and wild outside, but I am safe in my house that makes it feel so right. Of course, I’ve never had a fire right outside my house from lightning…..

  9. I was betting it was the stormiest, wettest June ever, or close, and I was right. Second place, I think.

    You should watch An Inconvenient Truth if you haven’t. I believe global warming is a very serious part of this storminess. (Though I’m thankful we don’t get Katrina-like storms in N.Y. or Pennsylvania.)

  10. a year after i graduated from college, while i was still living in Oneonta, we had an earthquake…something like a 2.5. it felt like a train going past right outside the window, except more so, and more steady, like a rocking.

    apparently there’s a massive faultline running along the western border of new york state. i had a geology professor who did some consultant work for the New York State Department of Energy because they have three nuclear power plants built on the faultline, and he had to study it and let them know that it was stable enough that they shouldn’t worry.

    there. that should comfort you, right?

    …right?

    why is scott knocking on my door with a baseball bat?

  11. lightning=not fun

    i don’t like lightning either because it freaks me out. i love thunderstorms and i’m not scared of them anymore like i used to be, but i agree with you about the lightning. i hope your couch cushions are not shredded to pieces. and if i don’t want to listen to the thunderstorm i just listen to my iPod and try to stay in a room with my parents or my sister if it’s during the day. i wonder if thunderstorms scare animals really badly. does your dog get freaked out by thunderstorms or the lightning too? my cats get so scared that they always hide under my sister’s bed. i hope your summer’s going well and i miss you and hope that we can get together sometime!

  12. Lightning and Speak

    My name is Amanda and I am turning 16 in a few days, and I thought I’d stop by and say hello. I live in Connecticut about 40 minutes from the new york border. We had a storm yesterday and it was right over our heads, being on a 1000 ft hill it seems like your closer to the thunder, so its louder. A few made me jump and there were quite a few flashes of lightning. Thats very good the rain put out the fire. That would not be good.

    When I first read speak 3 or 4 years ago, I was drawn in immediately and i just finished reading it again. My seventh grade Reading teacher recommended it. How right she was that it was a great book. While i wasnt in the same situation as Melinda, I did go into my freshman year shaken from a recent break-up of a long term relationship. I felt alone but i did have my few friends I could depends on. I think that Speak is one of the most inspiring and telling books of teenagers. The thoughts are right on and some I even think sometimes.

    I must thank you for writing Speak, and I intend to buy or take out of a library, your other books such as Catalyst which interests me greatly. I hope you keep writing more books like Speak. Thank you for your time, and I realize this is long, I just needed to tell you how I felt and how i could relate. Thank you SO much.

    -Amanda, 16, New Milford, CT

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