When it started hailing yesterday afternoon, I looked out the window in awe. This was pebble-sized hail, coming out of the sky like bullets. At about the same time I saw a flash of lightning and a few seconds later heard a long, loud roll of midwestern-type thunder. The wind that accompanied all this was amazing, howling through the trees like a jet on the runway. It's not the kind of Weather we get very often in Northern California.

It seemed that nature was about to do the utilities a favor and provide us with random rolling blackouts. That happened in some areas, but not here. There were also lightning strikes in Petaluma, about fifteen miles south, and in the Larkfield area of northern Santa Rosa.

There was not a bird to be seen in the yard during all this. I scanned the trees and looked in the sheltered areas of the garden but saw not a single sparrow. Then, the hail turned to cold rain, pelting just as hard, but there were suddenly birds everywhere — in the trees, on the ground, bumping into each other and chasing each other around. It was like the kindergarten yard at recess.

That was pretty much my day, or most of it. Weather like that keeps me inside even more effectively than my own timidity and reserve. I waited as long as I could to go to the post office, thinking it might let up just a bit, but I ended up going out in the worst of the rain we had all morning, until the hail started.

So it was just luck that it happened not to be raining hard at the moment David showed up yesterday afternoon. I'd been wanting to see his new truck, and he's pretty proud of it. It's big, it's fast, and it's red. And it towers above everything else he's ever owned. Way, way up there, looking out over the road ahead. No excuses now for not knowing what's going on all around.

He took me for a ride and I can testify that it's smooth, along with all its other obvious virtues. He's had it since Saturday, and it's (hopefully) the vehicle that'll carry him through the rest of college, the police academy, and whatever comes after that. (More pictures here.)

Something about the day wiped me out. I don't know if it was being out in the wind and rain, or wrestling with payroll tax forms, or just the fact that by this time in the week my sleeping habits are all upside down. I try, really, but each night I end up staying up just a little bit later, until by Thursday I'm not sure what's day and what's night. Friday night it doesn't matter, as long as I can sleep in Saturday morning. Somehow I seem to be able to catch up on the weekends and get the next week started right side up. Then the pattern starts again.

I fell asleep in the loft late yesterday afternoon, with rain beating down on the skylight windows. I'd been talking to Mom on the phone, and then I was reading, and then I wasn't. And then, magically, it was dark.

At least there was nothing I must see on TV last night, so I could once again try to get to bed at an hour that anyone with sense would call decent. That was the plan, anyway.

It turns out Mom has to have another eye operation. It's her ... oh, I don't remember how many operations she's had, but she knows, trust me. This one is a doozy, though. Not the surgery itself, but the two weeks after when she's not allowed to raise her head.

Imagine looking down for two weeks, without slipping and moving your head in a way that undoes all the good. The doctor says there's an eighty percent chance it'll improve her vision, and it's worth the risk. She has family who will be around as much as she needs us to take care of things. I don't know if she's even worried about that part of it.

It just seems like such an ordeal to have to hold your head in one position for such a long time, like a prison camp torture. She tried to avoid having the operation, but without it her vision will continue to deteriorate, and so this is worth both the risk and the discomfort.