Hope the stone passes as painlessly as possible, Drew.

A friend's grandfather was once struck by lightning that came through a windowpane and the back of an armchair. And I've had a TV get fried by a nearby lightning strike. (Dad was a TV repairman, and has seen old style picture tubes explode like frag grenades, so we were always very careful about TVs during storms.)

We also had to get off the phone because the lightning would follow the phone line into the house.

In 1985 my grandfather's brand-new IBM Color PC and even-newer 1200 baud modem was fried by a lightning strike to a telephone pole three houses down the street. Yet there was no damage to his touch-tone phone, or (as far as he could determine) anyone else's phone along the street.

I figure I'm safe because I'm surrounded by buildings higher than I am.

I dunno, lightning can do strange things. I witnessed one incident when I was working at a small airport back in the '90s. The operations building I was in had a 40-foot metal pole on it with our VHF radio antenna on top. Two hundred yards away, on the other side of the runway, was a metal hangar with a roof peak about 30 feet high. But instead of hitting either of those high conductive points, lightning struck the flat runway in between.

I love a storm and tend to sit and watch right in front of the window.

Oh, yes. Me too.

My volunteer maple seems to be doing well. I am tempted to call him Groot. [link]

So 5 hours later I have eaten all depressingly healthy snacks from the machines, had a tetanus shot, gotten an antibiotic prescription and possibly convinced a nice doctor named Dr. Patel to read Henry Adams.

One of my great-grandmother's sisters ran outside to try to get the laundry in before a storm and was killed by lightning. The story goes that she was wearing a dress with metal buttons down the front and had burns where each button touched her.

We had a lovely storm Saturday evening, with some wonderful lightning hitting the lake 3 miles away. Some big boomers. I really missed having Shadow around, because he'd curl up in my arms as I sat on the porch and watch the rain with me.

Too many Hs for it to be me! But he was so aptly named. And I don't think he grew into it, he just is a Loki.

I grew up in high desert; I have a healthy respect for, but not fear, of lightning storms. Been in buildings struck, once in a lake when it struck water somehow connected (mild body tingle-pop up storm, we didn't even see the clouds over the ridge until it happened,) had my hair stand up and all metal on my body warm. I'm probably a little careless just because I like to watch so much. And one's definitely coming now!

I'm leaving early to hit the salon

Okay, that's automatically a holiday for me. Plus it's the MLB draft day. Oh, and I'm picking up my new computer at the Apple Store just as soon as Matilda's Date With Justice is over.

So I feel like I zigged where Monday zagged.

Today I unplugged my bathtub with a snake, so I accomplished something besides eating hail.

I'm hoping mor more storms tonight but it's looking less likely.

I think the radio said we might have thunderstorms on Wednesday? I wasn't really paying attention. There was something about hail. While I was driving around in the 105° heat it all sounded pretty impossible.

My Monday continued to Monday. I had a doctor's appointment for regular preventive tests this afternoon, so I was supposed to leave the office early, so of course urgent stuff came in for to me right before I was trying to leave. Got out only a few minutes late, got to Kaiser about 10 minutes late for my appointment, stood in line for a bit and when I got up to the front got told "Oh, I'm sorry, you must be one of the people I couldn't reach" - my doctor called in sick. No big deal, we rescheduled and now they have my cell phone # (I could have sworn I went through this before but maybe that was a different department and they don't share phone numbers, who knows?). Got back out to my car and the "buy gas now" light came on, and the one on my dashboard does not give me a lot of notice, so I went and took care of that (horrible mileage this last tank). But then I went to Jamba Juice and spent my gift card ($5, it turns out, which almost paid for my drink), decided Bath & Body Works was more than I was willing to attempt, and came on home. I did leave the curtains drawn, and the inside of my house is not too hot AND my evil supply company parcel was waiting for me. So things are looking up!

That does look like a Groot, dcp.

My mom and I saw ball lightning appear in our kitchen once, ahead of a coming storm. We heard a crack like glass breaking and looked up, and there was this ball of bright white light on the ceiling. It hung there a second, then shot across the room and disappeared. Weirdest thing.