Summer Wine, Winter Whine

The calendar said that it is now officially fall, but Winter fired a warning shot across the bow just to let us know he is waiting in the wings.  That "light rain" in the morning turned into a day-long, steady downpour.  It's funny how one trip to the chicken pen slip-and-slide brings it all back; raindrops down the neck, trenching around the goat barn, bibbies wet to the knee.  Yup, like Maurice Chevalier in "Gigi," I remember it well.

There were a couple of electrical blips, brief little hiccups, early in the day but they did the darnedest stuff.  While the television went off, digital clocks stayed sane, and suddenly the ceiling fan went on by itself both times; weird.  It is a good thing Pearl just asked to be let in (again) by the laundry room door because, while it is still dark, I saw that lights downstairs in the shop are turned on too.  I haven't been down there in weeks, and would never notice in the daylight.

The thunder and lightning show came in the afternoon and it was a doozy.  Unplugging the computer seemed the better part of valor even though I was in the middle of paying bills.  Speaking with my great-niece in SoCal, I quickly terminated the call because the phone started crackling in my ear with each lightning strike.  Bessie Anne tried to be brave, but thunder claps like cannon fire right overhead had her stuck to my leg like a limpet.  Even Pearl followed from room to room.

Speaking of Pearl, she has done a 180 turn in personality.  From a rather aloof, don't-pet-me cat, she is rapidly becoming the next best thing to a pest.  She goes everywhere Bess goes, is on and off my lap a dozen times, demands treats every morning, and talks all the time.  Last night I was brushing Bessie's bangs out of her eyes and there was Pearl, grabbing the slicker brush and pulling it over to her face.  "Me, me, me!"  "Who are you, and what have you done with my Pearl?"

Having made his point, Winter gracefully withdrew at day's end, leaving us with a spectacular sunset.