An Electrical Storm, Hide Your Belly Button!

One thing I truly miss about Texas is electrical storms. That may sound strange, but they do clear the air. We have them here very rarely. However, we've had two in the last two weeks. I got stuck at the grocery store during one of them. The electricity went out for a while. The doors were halfway open with rain blustering onto the floor. All the registers went silent as we watched bicycles blow across the parking lot. It was really bizarre.

Today we had another one. Lightning crashed all around our house. I was concerned about being near windows and the TV. That's what I had been warned about when I was a kid. Old wives' tales, I guess. Anyway, I took no chances and herded the children and the two dogs into a bedroom away from electrical appliances. It was a dark and hot 40 minutes while it lasted. The dogs amused us.

At one point my son said, "I bet all the first graders are hiding their belly buttons."
"What?", I said. He then reminded me that in Japan they say that lightning takes belly buttons. He said little kids believe those kinds of things. (He's in fifth grade so he doesn't.) I had forgotten that old Japanese wives' tale.

After the storm, I took pictures of puddles. The picture above is the puddle in our garden. You can see the reflection of the palm tree near our gate. Many gardens around here have at least one palm tree. They must have been in fashion in the past. They do pretty well here in Tokyo. I guess because we have mild winters.

The next picture is of a puddle in the vegetable stand around the corner. Remember, when I said I thought it was amazing how sunshine makes its way through crowded narrow places? I think it's odd that water made its way through and settled here.





After all that noise and water, the sun came out again. I looked over at the sofa and there was a patch of sunshine. It had bounced off somewhere and made its way there.