Storms and stuff

Wrote this up last night, Thursday, but didn't get a chance to post till this morning.

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Well, last night was certainly interesting! I had a ringside seat for one of the best thunderstorms I’ve seen in ages!
It started about sunset, rolling in from the south-southwest. I was watching it out the windows while I had dinner and started up a DVD. By the time the first disc of movie was done, I decided to take an extended intermission and head outside.
The rain was pretty heavy, so I also put out my bowl to catch some rainwater. There really hadn’t been enough to catch on Litha, so I figured this would make up for it.
The house dog is afraid of lightning, so he had been taken inside shortly before the storm got rolling. Yay! This means I can open up the windows to the porch and let the whole place air out!
So, here I am, sitting on a bench, on the porch. I’m on the side of a nice mountain (remember the pics I showed you?), and Thor is having a field day. Lightning everywhere, and some of it pretty close! It was just one bolt after another, and the thunder from one would overlap into the next rumble. I had grabbed a bottle of Guinness out of the fridge, and just sat back and enjoyed. The temperature was downright chilly after a while, and it felt so good. I laughed and applauded and had a great time. There may be more storms tonight and tomorrow. Sure hope the Gaelic Storm concert tomorrow doesn’t turn into a total washout! (Though if Matti does end up coming with me, I’m sure I wouldn’t mind being caught in a storm….*grin*)
I guess this is the start of what the locals call ‘monsoon season’. Not my idea of a monsoon, of course, but it’s good to get rain. The weather patterns out here are different, naturally, what with the altitude and the terrain. I’m enjoying learning the new sky!
So, yeah, tomorrow night I’m gonna go to Abq for the Gaelic Storm show. It’s at the zoo, so lawn seating. Hence, I’m at the Laundromat washing my furry blanket thing so I have something to sit on tomorrow. There’s food available there, so I may eat at the show, or I may wait till afterward and hit the Frontier Restaurant. We’ll see. Haven’t gotten a call back from Matt, so this is probably gonna be a solo trip. No biggie, I know he’s busy lately. I’ll try calling again tomorrow, just in case he didn’t get the voicemail.

I also got something very neat in the mail yesterday. I had ordered a five-volume set of books: The Kitchen Grimoire. I forget the author’s name, sorry. I got them through the site that took over from the Pagan Kitchen MSN group. The new place is http://www.paganliving.org They have good forums, lots of recipes, and a nice bit of a store. Well, the gal who wrote the books had a bit of a crisis going on, and I’d been wanting to get the books anyway, so it seemed like the right time.
Wow, what a collection!! It’s a set of five 3-ring binders, very handsomely done, and the printing/publishing was done by a cookbook company. There are tons of recipes, of course, for food, potions, remedies, toiletries, you name it. There are also pages of lore, astrology tips, ritual and tool ideas, and more. If you’ve got the money to get this, I recommend you look at doing so. With the shipping, it was about 50 bucks for me. Cheaper by the set, of course, but you can also order volumes separately if you wish. There’s enough in there to keep this little bookworm happy for quite a while.