Starting Summer With a Bang (Or At Least a Rumble)

Well, summer vacation is officially underway. The boys have started swimming lessons, we've begun out "At-Home Summer Camp" schedule (drawing this week), and the boys will have their daily writing, typing, and music practices to do when Karen's off at work. And, this being New Hampshire, we have had afternoon thunderstorms nearly ever day this summer so far.

It's not unusual, but it's sort of a surprise because this pattern hasn't been around for awhile. But I remember when we first got a house here, it was just part of the normal routine. Some of the afternoon showers would obliterate our satellite reception. That's not a problem now, since we have neither satellite not cable (we rely on the Internet, NetFlix,  and Hulu Plus for our entertainment, which seems to be more than enough and it's much cheaper).

But the thunderstorms can have some pretty spectacular effects. For example, our rehearsal Sunday night at the theater when the building sort of got struck by lightning. Okay, when I say "sort of," I'm not being equivocal. I don't think the building itself actually got struck by lightning, because there was no fire. Or at least the building itself did not catch on fire. But there was a very loud explosion, and then the fire alarm system went crazy. Which is because the circuit box for the fire alarm was the source of the loud explosion.

We evacuated, not in a panic because there wasn't any actual flame, and we wanted to see what we could do to protect our beloved theater before we left it. It was pouring rain outside and we all got thoroughly soaked. The building seems to be okay. I think that a wire adjacent to the alarm wire (that sends a signal to the fire department) got struck, and the alarm got fried by induction.

We can still rehearse, but the wiring is going to have to be checked out and the alarm system fixed before we can put on a show, which we are scheduled to do in 31 days. This is the kind of excitement I can do without. I'll know more, I think, when we get together Wednesday night for rehearsal.

The weather is also making a mess of Karen's build schedule for the trailer, though she does have mornings off for a few days coming up, and the mornings have been mostly dry.

And outside construction is also proceeding slowly. But perhaps this pattern will change (it usually does at some point, though not any particular, predictable point) and we'll have warm, dry days for outside activity once more.