This is why I don't live in Iowa. Well, okay, it's not the only reason. But we don't have summer thunderstorms in California, do we? We especially don't have violent lightning strikes that knock the electricity and the satellite out for half the day. And the air doesn't get this muggy.

Whatever this was almost literally came out of the blue. The gray morning sky was about to clear up when it suddenly got darker again, and much louder. Oh, a little rolling thunder. How curiously different.

And then there was a blinding flash of light, followed by darkness. Not literally a blinding flash, but a definite bolt that looked as if it was just outside my window. And not literal darkness, because it was the middle of the day. But the computer went dark, the clocks went dark, and the TV screen became a black hole.

When the power came back on, so did everything else but the satellite. While I was waiting for TiVo to scan the skies in search of the mother ship, I reset all the clocks and rebooted Fidelina. And then came the announcement from DirecTV that they were sorry, but they couldn't find the satellite, and was I sure my dish was still on the roof? Well, I went out and checked, just to be sure.

Since the rain was falling at the time, I just assumed that when it stopped everything would come back. I don't know why I thought that, because it rains much harder all winter here, and I never lose the signal. I really had no reason to be optimistic, but I made the effort anyway. Eventually, everything started working again. And it stopped raining, and the sun came out, and you'd never know we'd just survived a brief dose of Iowa weather.

As we were walking up to the theater tonight, I asked Mom how many people she thought would walk out at intermission. The play is "The Rocky Horror Show," and the audience was the usual Friday night subscribers, mostly older people who probably had no idea what they were getting into.

But guess what. I was the grump. Everyone else was laughing and applauding and getting into it. I wasn't offended, and I knew how I was supposed to be feeling, and I even recognized that the company was doing a good job with the material. I also kept checking my watch and wondering how much longer it was going to go on. I didn't walk out, though, and I don't think anyone else did, either.