What I like best are the five or so minutes just before the storm. You know, when the lightning hasn’t caught up to the thunder just yet and you can smell the rain coming. I took this picture with my out-of-date cell phone and even so managed to catch a little unexpected majesty. Nothing like the great beyond working itself up into a tirade just over the subdivision rooftops of forty or so aging widow-women and their little snappy dogs.

I live in a “garden home” complete with a tall brick wall snaking its way all around us, keeping us protected from – I don’t know – maybe young people with sex drives and fast cars and bigger dogs. It’s not my fault. As I’ve mentioned before, I moved here in the early building stages and was blinded by 12″ moldings and shiny marble counter tops. You would have fallen, too. Admit it.

I‘m now among the youngest living here. My daughter and grandson who live with me are the other two. This is most obvious in the mornings when we seem to be the only people in the world leaving to go somewhere. It’s also obvious when, like tonight, a storm blows up and there’s no one but me standing in the middle of the street in my house shoes, trying to catch a tornado on a cellphone.

Make no mistake, the old gals are locked up tight clicking between the Weather Channel and Fox News.

Let’s hope they weren’t watching me, because when a good dose of lightning sprung out of the north I nearly lost both the cellphone and my ability to walk by falling up my own front steps. They’ve been a little wary of me since The Obama Conversation anyway. That’s okay. I know better than to shout “Medicare!” in a crowded garden home subdivision. I can handle these gals.

I’m going back out there. I don’t care if they’re watching or not.