Electrifried!

It's like the universe thought I was getting too much sleep.

My husband and I awoke at 1 this morning to a tremendous clap of thunder, a brilliant flash of lightning and a scary electrical noise that caused us both to leap out of bed to find what had caught fire. Strangely, nothing had, at least nothing in our place. I had a small moment of panic when my husband said, "at least your computer was unplugged, right?" and I realized that it hadn't been. But when I turned it on, it seemed to work OK, so I may have dodged a bullet there.

Miraculously, Stella weathered the storm pretty well. Funny how the little dog who yelps and whines when we put her in her crate doesn't mind at all when a storm is roaring outside and lightning strikes the building. But I digress.

The hub and I went back to bed and one of us slept through the rest of the night while the other kept one eye open to take the puppy outside when she had to go. (Hint: The latter has spent quite a bit of time and money on Starbucks lattes in the past week, and my husband doesn't drink coffee, so you go ahead and take a guess at who slept and who didn't. To add insult to injury, he also started snoring in the middle of the night.)

Around 7:30, when he took Stel out for her post-breakfast poop, my husband ran into our upstairs and downstairs neighbors (a nice guy named Andy, and McCrochetypants, respectively) and learned that all of Andy's electronics (and his ceiling fans) had been fried, and McCrochetypants' garage door wasn't working.

Side note: While they were talking, McCrochetypants offered to let us borrow an old alarm clock of his to help soothe Stel while she's in her crate -- the ticking is supposed to sound to puppies like their mother's heartbeat, so she'll feel more secure. It made me wonder if McCrochetypants had gotten struck by lightning as well, because although I'm sure he offered it up in the hopes that he won't hear her whine in the middle of the night, it was almost a nice thing to do.

As I finished getting ready for work, my husband assessed the damage done around our place. Although my computer seemed to be working, his hadn't weathered the storm quite as well (which is weird, because he had a surge protector). His speakers weren't working, and he couldn't access the internet. Upon investigating the other electronic items around our home, he also learned that his CD player and our Wii weren't working, so we're hoping insurance will help us out a bit here.

It could have been worse; I'm glad no one was hurt or anything (even McCrochetypants, because even though I hate him, I'm not that mean), but the whole episode was not really a great way to start a Monday.