BOOM! CRASH!

Lightening storms are awesome. I woke up extra early this morning for some pre-office-hours-overtime, hit the alarm, closed my eyes just for a few more snooze-minutes when FLASH! The sky through my window panes glowed whiter than white, for just that instant that lightening lasts. I lept from bed and held my head in my hands peeking through the curtains to watch the surface of the puddles outside dance with the drops of its contributaries.
FLASH! One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three- BOOM!

I loved storms ever since I was a kid. In the summers my sister and I would unplug all the chords in the whole house and run outside to dance in the rain. Literally on the sidewalk in front of our house, jumping and twisting. I don't remember where we got the idea but to us this was standard storm procedure. I can't imagine what ridiculous soaking-wet jumping beans we must've looked like. When the rain would slow we'd run under the giant soft pine tree, jump and grab its branches and shower ourselves with whatever it had left to drop.

For the rest of the day or perhaps next, if our parents hadn't already found us out and drug us indoors for the humiliation of baths and clean clothes we'd run around stomping in puddles, the muddier the better. When other kids might've thought up games where the mini-lakes represented land mines to be avoided, Lisa and I would create games where being in the puddle WAS the objective.

Now all grown up my rainy-day activities have changed, but not my attitude. I still get a little giddy around thunder and now that I've got a righteous pair of galoshes, puddle-stomping on busy Manhattan sidewalks is just as fun as it was in the back yard, maybe even more.