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So, the night before the awfulness of my heat exhaustion, and perhaps partly the reason for it, there was a storm. Now, I'd already stayed up far too late - whether my sleeplessness was the result of some person issues/stress or the steroid shot (or both!) I don't know. The upshot is that at 1:30 am, I was still up when Mr Smeddley came up to bed and mentioned the cable was out, and he'd seen some lightning when he took the dog out.
As I lay there, still unable to sleep, the storm rolled in. Cue lightning and thunder (why do people always say "thunder and lightning"? The lightning comes first! But it doesn't roll off the tongue as well..). Cue the dog, who is terrified of storms, jumping into bed and burrowing between us, shivering and panting like mad.
Despite this, I drift off by a little after 2 am. At 3:30 there is a terrible flash-boom that rattles the house and waked me up. And suddenly, from across the room, I hear a faint cooing sound. "Loooo-ohhh-ohhh-ohhhhhhhhhhhhh" (for a more exact sound, this YouTube video captures it perfectly)
Mr Smeddley also hears it, wakes up, and turns on the light. There is another flash-boom and the lights flicker. The noise continues. We start investigating the corner of the room, trying to find the source of the sound. He tries the little stuffed birds we have in the nest: cardinal, chickadee, robin... a few others... no dice. I am trying to figure out if it's his alarm, somehow trying to go off but not making it. Then we realize the noise is coming from the pile of stuffed animals. We start digging, and find a mama loon with a baby loon. It's like the little birds, you squeeze them and they have a box inside that plays a sound. But it only plays it once or twice, then stops. Only the loon is not stopping. And no amount of squeezing is making it stop. In frustration, Mr Smeddley punches the loon in the chest, and it stops. We look at each other, confused, and stumble back to bed. I do NOT want to get up at 6 when the alarm goes off, and oversleep, and leave the house in a rush, complicated slightly by the breaker that tripped - the one that opens the garage doors. Still after mucking with it a moment (you have to make sure it's all the way off, then turn it back on) I manage to get it working.
THen he calls me when he gets up and tells me the receiver on the tv/stereo setup downstairs is fried. His computer is okay, as is the brand-new Mac I just bought him (phew!). He checks my computer, and it's not even been turned off - it's still in "sleep" mode and just fine. The stove and washer/dryer reset, though, so they lost power. And we still have no cable/internet.
That night (after my collapse and nap!) we go to buy a new receiver, and the guy at the store says it happens that people plug their main equipment into a surge protector, but that often the subwoofer, which sits to the side, is not. A surge can travel through that and back to the receiver, killing it. Which would explain why the other things hooked up (xBox, DVD player, TV) are all fine. We lay down WAY too much money on a new system and head home.
Fast forward to yesterday, the cable people finally come out and fix what is wrong (yay internets! yay cable!) and tell us there are three points where it looks like the house is fried - at the box outside, at the first splitter, and the modem. Whatever hit us did a number, and I count us lucky we didn't lose anything more. Two other odd things outside - a divot on the garage floor, just under my garage door, where it popped out concrete chunks (there was a crack there, but just a small one) and a weird trench going from the oak tree to the edge of the driveway. I really do wonder how close that lightning hit, and if those (and the loon - seriously, what set that off? Vibrations? But we've had thunder like that before, loads of times! Electricity?) are related.
It's been a weird and crazy week, and the weekend is progressing at a break-neck pace, as well! There's been some drama and I've gone to some shows at Fringe (for the first time!) so a run-down of the weekend's shows will be upcoming. I'm not sure if I'll write about the drama, we'll see...
As I lay there, still unable to sleep, the storm rolled in. Cue lightning and thunder (why do people always say "thunder and lightning"? The lightning comes first! But it doesn't roll off the tongue as well..). Cue the dog, who is terrified of storms, jumping into bed and burrowing between us, shivering and panting like mad.
Despite this, I drift off by a little after 2 am. At 3:30 there is a terrible flash-boom that rattles the house and waked me up. And suddenly, from across the room, I hear a faint cooing sound. "Loooo-ohhh-ohhh-ohhhhhhhhhhhhh" (for a more exact sound, this YouTube video captures it perfectly)
Mr Smeddley also hears it, wakes up, and turns on the light. There is another flash-boom and the lights flicker. The noise continues. We start investigating the corner of the room, trying to find the source of the sound. He tries the little stuffed birds we have in the nest: cardinal, chickadee, robin... a few others... no dice. I am trying to figure out if it's his alarm, somehow trying to go off but not making it. Then we realize the noise is coming from the pile of stuffed animals. We start digging, and find a mama loon with a baby loon. It's like the little birds, you squeeze them and they have a box inside that plays a sound. But it only plays it once or twice, then stops. Only the loon is not stopping. And no amount of squeezing is making it stop. In frustration, Mr Smeddley punches the loon in the chest, and it stops. We look at each other, confused, and stumble back to bed. I do NOT want to get up at 6 when the alarm goes off, and oversleep, and leave the house in a rush, complicated slightly by the breaker that tripped - the one that opens the garage doors. Still after mucking with it a moment (you have to make sure it's all the way off, then turn it back on) I manage to get it working.
THen he calls me when he gets up and tells me the receiver on the tv/stereo setup downstairs is fried. His computer is okay, as is the brand-new Mac I just bought him (phew!). He checks my computer, and it's not even been turned off - it's still in "sleep" mode and just fine. The stove and washer/dryer reset, though, so they lost power. And we still have no cable/internet.
That night (after my collapse and nap!) we go to buy a new receiver, and the guy at the store says it happens that people plug their main equipment into a surge protector, but that often the subwoofer, which sits to the side, is not. A surge can travel through that and back to the receiver, killing it. Which would explain why the other things hooked up (xBox, DVD player, TV) are all fine. We lay down WAY too much money on a new system and head home.
Fast forward to yesterday, the cable people finally come out and fix what is wrong (yay internets! yay cable!) and tell us there are three points where it looks like the house is fried - at the box outside, at the first splitter, and the modem. Whatever hit us did a number, and I count us lucky we didn't lose anything more. Two other odd things outside - a divot on the garage floor, just under my garage door, where it popped out concrete chunks (there was a crack there, but just a small one) and a weird trench going from the oak tree to the edge of the driveway. I really do wonder how close that lightning hit, and if those (and the loon - seriously, what set that off? Vibrations? But we've had thunder like that before, loads of times! Electricity?) are related.
It's been a weird and crazy week, and the weekend is progressing at a break-neck pace, as well! There's been some drama and I've gone to some shows at Fringe (for the first time!) so a run-down of the weekend's shows will be upcoming. I'm not sure if I'll write about the drama, we'll see...