Leo the Cat is an excellent predictor of thunderstorms. Only thunder and fireworks make him do the belly-to-the-ground whining crawl for his favorite hiding place. He just did it, even though the sky looks clear. I checked the weather and yep, we're supposed to get a storm in about an hour. He's hearing the thunder way off across the mountains from the approaching storm.

This is my problem. I'll almost always wake up around 5-6 am, and if I go back to sleep an hour later, I won't wake up until 10.

This is actually my problem too, except I need to wake up around 5 or 6, and I do wake up at 2 or 3! I tried going to bed later to try to move the waking back, and then I just end up waking at 2 after 2 hours sleep instead of 4.

Luckily, most of the time I just go back to sleep and come to work late, but I really feel that needs to stop. It doesn't help that I take the bus, so to get to work by 8, my choices are leaving at 5:25 or 6:09, and then no bus until 7:09 (which gets me to work at about 8:15) and then 8:09 (which gets me to work about 9:15.

Yeah, our Corgi is terrified of thunder, and we know ahead of time a storm is coming, because he starts shaking and trying to insert himself into our bodies as much as possible.

When I was young, my family was terrified of thunder and lightening. I would be woken up if I was in bed, and we would unplug everything and close all the windows and sit in the dark in the living room, possibly listening to the battery powered radio.

The poor dog could not compete-- there was no one to comfort him because we were all shaking and whimpering.

I also hated it because we couldn't use the toilet because my family was afraid that we might be struck by lightening on the toilet, attracted by the water in the bowl.

In their defense, my neighbors house seemed to be a magnet for lightening strikes-- I think between the trees, telephones, and televisions struck by lighting, they were hit 10 or 12 times.

Holy crap, Sophia. That seems like quite an overreaction.

My mother used to close allt he windows and sprinkle holy water in each room when there was a thunderstorm.

The cave is not far from some people's psyches.

edit: Moved to Bitches, where people are actually talking about bottled water.

much ~ma for Drew!

My mother used to close allt he windows and sprinkle holy water in each room when there was a thunderstorm.

If there was a tornado watch -- not warning, which is the more severe of the two; just a watch -- my mom would round us all up and make us go in the basement. I would bring like 10 books. Because you never know how long you might be down there.

(She STILL texts or emails me to tell me when there are severe storms predicted. And every time, I tell her that I have the internet, TV, and radio just like she does, and I already knew about it. My former co-workers lived for her panicked Grim Reaper texts.)