Smitten

Last night, the thunder came back.

You could hear it for miles stalking the suburbs of eGoli.
When it got to us, I was asleep, but woke up immediately when a crack and an ear-splitting boom sounded right overhead.

This is not unusual in Gauteng Province which, together with KwaZulu Natal Province, apparently gets more lightning strikes than  the rest of the world combined. We've been hit before, but without serious consequence.

This time, however, the lightning struck the house full-on. We have a small, squat cottage of a dwelling - but the roof sports three 2-metre metal poles, holding floodlights and the WiFi antenna.
All the little lights which stay on, foolishly, through the night - the computers, the coffee machine, the porch lamp - went out, although I looked and saw that the rest of the neighbourhood was still fully lit.
It seems that our electrical circuitry is working well, as the distributor board tripped instantly, and Warren only had to trudge outside in the rain to flip it back on.

We then took another hour or so to settle back to sleep - and the dogs, bless their brave little hearts, were huddled together in their traveling cage - a Faraday cage of note.

 The most interesting thing about this whole episode, though, to me, was my reaction to it.

I wasn't afraid. I mean, I felt no fear whatsoever. But my body, being a good deal smarter than my head and having a complete mind of its own, decided that here was, indeed, something to fear. Genetic distance has not dimmed the alarm response which sent my heart briefly racing like mad, and dried up all the saliva in my mouth in a nanosecond.

The disconnect between what my brain thought and what my body knew is quite startling to me, and has me thinking that I need quite a lot more coherence...

Pic: found here