I sat on the back porch in a lawn chair and breathed deep the air while the rain fell all around me. The porch is covered. Lest you think I’m weird. Well, okay, I am a little weird. But not weird enough to sit in a lawn chair under the open sky in a thunderstorm.

It reminded me of home. The storm, not the chair.  Not home like where I live, but home where I come from. South Carolina home. The one and only home I’ll ever call home, no matter where I live.

First, it gets hot. So bloody hot. Lord have mercy, it was hot. The air gets so thick and heavy, it’s like being swaddled in a wet, heated blanket from head to toe and try as you might, you just can’t unravel yourself from it. It’s useless to even try. Making the attempt only serves to make you hotter.  The atmosphere has a pregnant quality to it. It’s uncomfortably thick and miserable and it’s going to burst any minute now. You can feel it. People actually look up at the sky in quiet expectation, waiting for it to drop whatever it is it’s carrying that’s making it so hot and angry. It’s a vengeful kind of hot.

That might go on for day, maybe two or three days. It might only last a few hours. It’s always just long enough that people start losing their minds a little. They cast about in the heat, bumping into one another and grumbling about how it’s too damn hot and get out from in front of the air conditioner so everyone can feel it, damn it. Only in the Pacific Northwest nobody has air conditioners. It rarely gets hot enough here to justify the expense carbon footprint.

Then comes the thunder and lightening. Yesterday’s thunder was particularly enjoyable and not just because we don’t get it that often. It was loud, angry thunder. It was a prolonged, grumbling thunder. I was taking a nap late in the afternoon, above the covers, trying to sleep through the heat. It’s unusual for me to nap. I try often, but rarely ever succeed. I’ve been sick though and stressed and not sleeping very well at night and then here is this damn, insufferable heat. It all caught up with me at once and I crashed beneath the sheet, deep in fitful sleep. The fan was in the window right beside my bed. There was precious little air being pulled through it. I tossed and turned. I think I was dreaming I was in Hell.

There was a crack so loud it sounded like a gun going off right next to my head. I know guns. This sounded like a gun. I sat straight up in bed, swung my legs over the bed and peered out the window, past the blades of the fan and up into the sky. It looked pissed. It was dark and still sunny at the same time. There was an epic battle going on overhead. Good vs. Evil. Sun vs. Rain. Light vs. Dark.

I sat there a few minutes more and counted off three more resounding cracks across the sky, coupled with brilliant flashes of light. By the time I padded down the hall into the living room the sky had opened up and rain was pouring. The wind was blowing fiercely in a million different directions at once. That baby was done stewing and had finally decided to drop.  I scurried around the house removing fans and closing windows and then ran to sit on the back porch — the better to enjoy the show.

The Native Americans associate thunderstorms with the Thunderbirds, servants of the Great Spirit. The Romans thought they were planetary battles  — wars waged by Jupiter who would toss lightening bolts around like confetti. There is a Nordic tale called “The Theft of Freyia’s Necklace” in which a thunderstorm becomes a contest between Fire and Water. Freyia becomes the sun, her necklace a rainbow. And of course there is Thor. And Zeus. Stories abound. Thunderstorms fascinate and spark the imagination. They terrify and lend themselves to speculation, fables, myth, legend.

For me, it was bliss. Pure bliss. It was like a fever breaking and all the relief just poured out across the land. It was like a damn bursting and the water just washed everything squeaky clean.

It was like being home again.

It’s freakin’ freezing out there. It says it’s 20 degrees outside, but it feels more like negative 20. Our pipes froze this morning but Matt got us fixed up in no time. Take a look at this, would ya?

That’s the view from our front yard. And this is the back:

This is what USED to be my patio:

And this is the exit out my back door. Nice, huh?

The only remedy for this is a nice, hot, steaming bowl of Chicken Tortilla Soup:

and top it off with these tie-dye cupcakes. They’re fun to eat, but a lot of work to make:

When you cut into it, this is what you’ll find:

Cool, huh? I’ll post the recipe later, but for now the kids are eating them all up. I’m on frosting patrol. Kaileb says they’re Tie-Dye-Licious. So, that’s good, right?

I won’t be going anywhere for awhile, not in this weather. So you’ll probably see me here again, with more recipes and complaining. Hooray!

when we were kids we used to hunt frogs and crawdads in the pond near my uncle’s house every summer. he’d barbecued them. we’d clomp around ankle deep in water and reeds and shorts and tennis shoes with water seeping between our toes so that, when we came out again our steps would say, “shuuush shuuuush shuuuush shuuuush.”

our uncle was called “Mustard” but i’m not sure why. i don’t remember his real name or if he even had one. he was always mustard to me. we’d bring him giant frogs and crawdads to clean and throw on the grill along with the burgers and steaks and hotdogs. the crowds were huge. not the crowds of frogs and crawdads, but the crowds of people gathering for the bbq.

we named our frogs first. we petted them and gave them baths down at the pond. we knew they were to be eaten and accepted that. bbq frog legs that came steaming and tender off the grill were not the same as the frog called “Bob” or “Nanook” or “Teddy the Incredible Jumping Bean” we had just captured at the pond. it was not the same. it was, but it wasn’t. we separated ourselves from it somehow.

crawdads, we didn’t care so much. they were ugly and insect-like and had no soul. no character. they couldn’t jump comically and make you want to fall in love with them. they couldn’t break your heart laying there on the grill. there was no crawdad named “Teddy the Incredible anything.”

winters make me want to put on keds and jump in ponds full of frogs and crawdads. cold razor-winds make me long for the hot, sticky, humid south carolina summer air. i want to tie my hair back with a ribbon and go galavanting through that pond near mustard’s acres. i want a good old-fashioned frog hunt. i’d like to find a great big one and name him “Gus the Galloping Wonder” then listen to my shoes shushshushshuuush when i climb out, wet from the knees down, and plop down on the shore. i’d like to lay in the grass and pet him awhile before turning him over for the sacrifice. then i want to wander among all those ghosts from my past. the way i used to do. when i was small enough to be able to hide behind skirts and the tall-legged men telling their tall tales. just wander among them and listen to them talking and laughing, eating and drinking one more time, at one more summer bbq.

that’s all. i just needed to update.