Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Lightning and Hail and Froggie Boots

Welcome to autumn in a year we forgot to have summer!

Today we went to the Y to go for a swim. As we crossed the Purdy spit we looked over the bay at a very impressive, ominous stormcloud over the Eastern sky. We started making jokes about The Nothing coming to get us; it was so dark and huge and the sheets of rain you could see from the distance looked like combed grey wool being strung from the sky. We made it to the Y without the Nothing catching us, but while we were changing and showering for the pool it arrived.

G got into the pool faster than I, but the boys and I hadn't been in the pool three minutes before the lightning struck. (Here in WA, lightning is an odd occurence. P-daddy and I balefully miss the dramatic thunderstorms of the South) No one moved. I called my kids over to me and said, "Back home, we would be getting out of the pool because of a lightning strike like that." Hearing me, the closest lifeguard, a girl of maybe 16, looked at us nervously. Almost as soon as I had finished my statement, the pool supervisor came barreling out of his office, bellowing "OUT OF THE POOL! EVERYONE OUT OF THE POOL!"

The big kids and I started laughing. I was reassured that yes, we do have similar water safety in mind, but I am also perverse enough that I thought it was funny watching the newbie lifeguards scramble. Mommy won know-it-all points from the big kids, but D-baby was having NONE of it. His howls very nearly drowned out the thunder as we left the pool room.

After we changed and the kids shifted expectations, they decided to go for a run. All of them. G was dressed for it in her purple running outfit, but N, who wouldn't put down his new too-big-for-him backpack, couldn't keep up with D-meister. Yes, the D-meister was running laps at the Y, in yellow and orange tie-dye and green froggie boots. Ah, Washington.

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